Strangers Like Me
by scooby2408
Summary: AU Sequel to Flight of Dreams. In a world where the Millennium Puzzle passed through someone else's hands, sometimes all you need to get you through life is just advice from a stranger - a stranger who may not be that far from your own path...
1. Loss

**A/N: For those who have read Flight of Dreams, welcome back! Those who haven't, welcome anyway. Reading the first one isn't completely necessary to understand what is going on.**

**Basically, this is based in an alternative universe in which Yugi never received the Millennium Puzzle. Instead, it goes to another soul, Izzy, who essentially walks the same path. ****I mentioned at the end of Flight of Dreams, I began with every intention of writing the complete adventures of Izzy, but I decided that is now highly unrealistic, therefore explaining the sequal.**

**Disclaimer - I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! Never have and never will, I do however own Izzy and her friends.**

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Strangers Like Me

Prologue - Loss

The pain erupts suddenly and unexpectedly, spreading through my stomach to the rest of my body. It is like an explosion, setting fire to everything in my body that it can reach. I sink to my knees, the sword clattering to the ground, unable to believe that this is really happening. This shouldn't happen; this can't be happening.

I become aware of something somewhere behind me and I know she is shrieking in terror as the fire starts to consume her, and then it falls silent, except for the erratic beat of my own heart.

It is no less than she deserves for everything that she's done to all those I consider friends and family – for all those times, she hurt those I care about to get to me.

In the distance, there is a cracking sound and I know the shield has finally fallen. I can hear the others, calling my name, able to reach me at last. I see their faces of dismay and horror and I know that it is hopeless.

_I am falling. I can't stop._

I am shaking, knowing that the blood is seeping from my stomach. I am coughing, fighting for breath; my hands are red and getting redder by the second. I can feel my chest tighten with pain. My heart struggling to replace the blood I am losing.

"_Listen to me; you're gonna be fine, we can save you."_

They know they can't. There is nothing they can do.

I know I am dying. They know it too. He knows it; he knows that he can't save me. I know that his heart is breaking and I can't stop it.

I can hear them crying. I can feel his tears as he holds me close, unwilling to accept that it could be over.

_I am dying._

It is a unique feeling - drifting from this world to the next. It was strange knowing, that this was it - this really is the end and knowing that the white light is coming for me. I have come so close to this point is recent years - some closer than others, but every time, somehow I had managed to escape from the brink of destruction. We all had at some point in the last four years, but this time it is different, because there is no coming back for me.

"_Don't die."_

The white light is growing stronger; I can't see them anymore. I can't breath.

_"I can't lose you again."_

I don't want to be alone. I don't want to die. I can't do this. I'm scared.

_I don't want to die!_

_I can't die!_

"_I love you."_

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**_

Sometimes, when you die, you experience a pure moment of clarity in which things you have done and things you have not done are made clear to you. All the choices that you make; all the paths you could have walked.

_**Sometimes, it shows you more; it shows you what could have been and those who would have walked the same path that you did.**_

_**Sometimes, it shows the parallels of our paths and where our lives merge.**_

**_Sometimes, Death gives you a second chance._**

_**Sometimes, it just shows the strangers like me.**_

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A/N: Whee! It was necessary, but don't worry, it won't all be as depressing as that, I promise. It mostly follows in cronlogical order, all except the prologue which is somewhere in the middle.

**Till next time, have fun and review.**


	2. Friendship

**A/N: Hello again. Unlike the prologue, I promise that this one is more cheery. Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! I do, however, own any orginal characters**

Chapter One - Friendship

_Life is a funny thing and quite often changes in ways that you don't expect or want it to or so my older sister, Izzy says. She also says that to be prepared for it would also be impossible._

_Admittedly, my sister has come out with some strange things in the past few months, since she came home from Duelist Kingdom last October. She came home announcing that she had actually won; I had no idea how she must have done it, but somehow she did. I don't remember much about what happened that week, seeing as I was out of it, shall we say. I was in a coma, or rather that's the official version that the doctors and our parents know._

_My sister and I are a little wiser. I wasn't exactly in a coma, so to speak, but it was very close. I can only remember a lot of darkness and emptiness; it was a little hazy._

_When she returned from Japan, Izzy took me aside from our parents and filled me in on the details that I'd missed out on – primarily about the deal with Maximillion Pegasus and the Millennium Items and that he had stolen my soul in order to force her to attend his tournament. It turns out that the golden pyramid that my sister has taken to wearing is one of these seven magical items. She said that hers was a little special because it contained a spirit that she shared a bond with._

_To begin with, I was disinclined to believe her, until her eyes sharpened, turning a much darker shade of blue and she started smirking at me in a slightly evil manner and repeatedly hammered me into the ground at a game that I usually won, with strategies that I had never seen nor come across before; then I have to say that I began to change my mind. It would account for my sister's sudden and rapid increase in gaming skills._

_The others also claim that it's true. Apparently Alyssa had one of these Items too, but hers was evil. Izzy insists that her spirit is an extremely good friend of hers and is on no account an evil force._

_Anyway, a few weeks later, we had a transfer from Japan, a boy. We instantly took to each other, it seemed that we had already met somewhere and so we became friends, and I invited him around to our home. Izzy came back from school that day, and the first thing that she said to my guest was not:_ "Hello, how are you_," but a: "_Mokuba, your brother isn't around here is he_?"_

_It turns out that my sister and my new friend had already met before on Duelist Kingdom, and that said new friend was the brother of the last person she wanted to see at the moment – Seto Kaiba. Between the two of them, they reinforced what Izzy and the others had told me about having our souls stolen by Pegasus, therefore explaining why I had felt that I'd met Mokuba before._

_And when a few days later, Izzy came home practically screaming that Seto Kaiba had transferred into her class, I though it would be wise not to mention that I had been invited to their mansion for the weekend._

_She shouted a lot about Seto Kaiba being a complete jerk in the weeks that followed. He developed a habit of challenging her to duels at school using some kind of prototype gaming disk, and every time she accepted, it was on the condition that they don't duel on the roof again and then every time, my sister then proceeded to kick his butt. When asked about this by the teachers after disturbing the peace of lunchtime for a third consecutive day in a week, neither of them were willing to admit and explain why._

_I often heard her grumbling to what I presume was the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle. She never did it if our parents were in the house. She did it if she knew I was still in the house because she had told me the truth, but she never told our parents._

_She said they wouldn't understand._

_However, as much my sister grumbled about Seto Kaiba at home, it did not stop her from going with Mokuba to rescue him, when as Alyssa so eloquently put it: "_The idiot got himself trapped in his own virtual game and now needs someone to go and save his butt… again_."_

_Simon went with her and Mokuba into the game while Alyssa, Cassie and I held up the fort from the real world. It turns out it was a good thing that we stayed; Kaiba was sent into the virtual world by his board – the Big Five who planned on giving the company to Pegasus. The Big Five sent men disconnect the Virtual Reality pods, leaving my sister, Simon, Mokuba and Seto Kaiba all stranded in Cyberspace._

_The three of us didn't approve of this plan and began the defence of the room- shoving tables and cabinets in front of the door. I think at one point Cassie actually bit one guy's hand, but I can't be certain._

_We were delighted when the pods cracked open and the three rescuers pushed the lids open, yawning slightly, but with the mission complete and Kaiba rescued. Simon told me afterwards that while Kaiba complained about_ him _rescuing him, but apparently, he was not too fussed about my sister doing it. He even said: "_Thank you, but don't think that this means we'll be teaming up in future. As soon as we get to school on Monday, I want a duel and this time I am going to win_."_

_The adjoining room door slid open too revealing a blond woman who both Cassie and Alyssa greeted cheerily._

_Apparently it was another person they had met at Duelist Kingdom – one of the other finalists, Mai Valentine. She was pleased to see me, although I had never actually met her. When I voiced this later, Cassie patted me on the back and said not to worry._

_After both Kaiba and my sister had left, Alyssa scribbled something on piece of paper. It turns out that the three of them are keeping a tally of all the times that Izzy has saved Kaiba's butt, so they can blackmail him later._

_It was a few weeks later, nearing Christmas time, when Izzy declared the need to go shopping. It was at this point that I met the girl who I know I now consider being the bane of my existence – Rebecca Hawkins. She is about Cassie's age, and was the American Duel Monsters Champion. She carried a teddy bear in one hand and insisted on talking to it._

_I swear that girl and her teddy bear are enough to give anyone nightmares._

_Cassie and Alyssa, and Izzy and me were in one of the game shops in town, shopping or rather Cassie and Alyssa and I were shopping while Izzy had her head down and her hat pulled over her eyes, trying not to get noticed as she did the shopping that she needed._

_It turns out that I was the one in need of hiding, and not my sister._

_I had just stepped away from a shelf and backed into someone, sending whatever they were carrying to the floor. Being the helpful person I was, I bent down to help the girl. Her eyes started shining, and so I did the only thing that I could: I scuttled over to find my sister. Wimpy, I know, but at that moment, it seemed like a smart move._

_Rebecca followed me to Izzy and on recognising her and then practically announced it to whole shop, challenging her to a game. The prize was one that I was not too pleased with, because if Izzy lost I would have to go on a date with Rebecca._

_I was reasonably confident that my sister would beat the girl and save me from her clutches, but of all the things, my sister had to go and do, this was the worst. When an old man, her grandfather, Professor Hawkins, the famous archaeologist in the city for a conference, showed up at the stadium; he showed Rebecca that had Izzy played the card she had drawn, she would have lost. He apologised on behalf of his granddaughter; she had the good sense to look guilty._

_Unfortunately, Izzy had still surrendered, which meant that I still had to go on the date._

_Needless to say, I didn't speak to my sister for a week after this incident, seeing as she could have avoided it._

_The last few days before Christmas brought with them a wonderful surprise – snow. For the first time in years it looked as though we would have actually have snow for Christmas and so on Christmas Eve, we both wrapped up warmly and agreed to meet with Cassie, Alyssa and Simon at Highford Park and have some fun in the snow. I told Izzy jokingly as we walked that it was probably a side effect of having the Millennium Puzzle. We both know it isn't, but we can laugh about it anyway._

_Between the five of us, we made a rather good snowman and then Cassie and I began chucking snowballs at each other, Simon joining in – it seems that the Spirits of the Millennium Puzzle and the Millennium Ring had never seen snow before. They started to pick it up what we were doing very quickly and started lobbing them primarily at each other; at one point it actually got quite violent as far as snowball fights can go, until Simon and me had climbed the tree they were commencing battle under and shoved the snow that had collected on the branches on top of them, burying them both in snow. It was several moments before Izzy and Alyssa resurfaced, hauling each other from the snow – laughing and grinning about the whole thing, Alyssa chuckling that 'Bakura' didn't like this wet stuff any more._

_It was at this point Izzy announced her Christmas gift – it was a little different this year; Alyssa had always told her, that she and her sister had always wanted to go to Japan, the little trip to Duelist Kingdom in October not counting, and so that was going to be her Christmas present to us – a trip to Tokyo in the Easter Holidays. She had already talked it over with our respective parents, who had all keep remarkably quiet about it, and they had all agreed. It was to be a part Christmas gift, but also a thank you gift for being there when she needed us. She also added with a small smile that Kaiba wasn't going to find out until after they had gone._

_Even the Spirit of the Ring couldn't keep Alyssa from being cheery in the months that were between Christmas and Easter, and by the time we got there she was absolutely bubbling with energy. On the fourth day we ended up splitting up, Cassie and me with our older siblings and then Simon – this was the day that we were going to the Tokyo Tower, and Simon said that he would meet us at the level two below the top, and then we would all go up to the top level together._

_We reached the floor much later we though; expecting Simon to be waiting for us, we jogging the last few steps, but there was no sign of him. We could hear a crowd jeering above us so we went to investigate. We found the crowd on the level above and we found Simon dressed in, of all things a dog suit. He was not happy. He looked far from happy._

_It took a moment or two for Cassie and me to stop ourselves from bursting out laughing; Alyssa just stared inquisitively at him. Izzy tilted her head, frowning as she asked him what on earth had been going on as a tall figure with a dice dangling from one ear emerged from the crowd. It looked rather silly to be honest, but the crowd seemed to recognise him and were cheering him and jeering at Simon. He explained that Simon had challenged him to a game and had lost; his punishment was to be the boy's servant. _

_Izzy demanded that he put an end to this madness and when she did the boy just laughed at her. Instead, he accused my sister of cheating at Duelist Kingdom; for there was no way that creators could be beaten at their own game. He revealed his name to be Duke Devlin and that if she wanted Simon's freedom; she would have to fight for it using a game that he had created. He began flicking dice at Simon who raised an arm to defend himself. An arm shot out and caught one die in mid-air, and Izzy; correction the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, for my sister's eyes had darken in the way that they only do when she has switched minds with him, agreed to the terms._

_Dungeon Dice Monsters isn't very well known at the moment; it's on the shelves sure enough, but it lacks the support of one of the big gaming companies to real make it a success. Duke went to Industrial Illusions a few weeks before Duelist Kingdom and Pegasus had agreed to back the game, but since my sister's victory, Duke had heard nothing from the company._

_Alyssa is the expert player in our group; she's even got herself to the final herself; at the back of every dice is a code that you can log on to the net and use it in a virtual game. I know that I have never played the game, and from the best of my knowledge neither had my sister._

_Maybe it was a bad idea to accept this challenge, but Alyssa didn't seemed to think so, winking slightly as she handed over her own dice pool. Apparently, she and Devlin knew each other too. He had played under an assumed name and fought Alyssa in that online tournament. He had only narrowly won; this time he only narrowly lost._

_Duke Devlin had remained on his knees; unable to believe a creator could be beaten at his own game. My sister, having switched back with the Spirit, walked around the stadium, tossing the dice pool back to its owner as she passed her, who stored it safely back in her pocket, and pulled the defeated boy to his feet. She insisted that he came with us to get pizza after Simon had climbed out of the dog suit and he did so, leaving the crowds at the top of the tower. He stuck around with us, showing us the other smaller sites until we were ready to leave for England again, but before we left Izzy tossed him a piece of paper with her email address and the instruction to keep in touch with us. He slipped it into his pocket and waved us off – grateful that he had been given a second chance with the promise that he would indeed keep in touch._

_There was an afternoon in late June that my sister came home looking like she had just run a marathon. When she was finally able to tell me what had happened, Izzy explained that she had taken a little detour to the Shadow Realm, only the rest of her history class came with her and when she and Alyssa had tried to do something about it - it had backfired on them badly, leaving the group defenceless against shadow monsters that decided this was the right moment to attack. She explained that somehow the two of them had found enough energy to summon a monster to protect the group while their darker halves, the ones more used to dealing with the shadow magic, figured out how to get everybody back home. She added as they faded away from the shadows and back home; she could have sworn that she had heard laughter. _

_When they had arrived back, the spirits of the Millennium Ring and the Millennium Puzzle had begun mind-wiping the class, so they would not remember the incident. Unfortunately there was one person that they had missed- Sam, one of their friends and so they had been forced to tell her what had really happened. She had been startled, but utterly accepted it as to why the pair of them had been acting so strange for months._

_As we neared the end of the school year, Seto Kaiba stopped showing up at school. The teachers claimed it was a new business enterprise that he was working on, but that he would still be doing his schoolwork; Alyssa snorted when she heard that, she reckons he's probably working on a new strategy to try and beat Izzy again. Kaiba's disappearance from school soon proved to be the least of my sister's concerns. In the last week of school, the art and history departments organised a joint trip to the local museum. This was something that Izzy had been planning to do for a while, as the stone tablet that had been dug up while she was at Duelist Kingdom and showed a mysterious Egyptian Pharaoh and his high priest, was currently on display there and she wanted to see it._

_She, Alyssa and Sam were all going up there together, but when Izzy got home from the museum later that day, she looked rather ill and wouldn't answer any of my questions, so I called Alyssa instead to find out what the heck had happened to make my sister look like she did._

_They had found the stone tablet easily enough, but there were some issues about it that caused Izzy to freak out. The first was that high priest figure on the tablet looked a lot like Seto Kaiba, which Alyssa and Sam both found highly amusing. This wasn't what made my sister freak out, it was the second figure, the image of the pharaoh that did that, because she recognised it, instantly, because she claimed to have only spoken to him only few moments before they had seen the stone tablet._

_At this point, the curator of the exhibit, a Miss Ishizu Ishtar, appeared behind them, scaring them all half to death. She began explaining the history of the tablet, in particular in regard to its importance to Duel Monsters, the Millennium Items and Shadow Magic. She revealed that she was one of the other holders of the Millennium Item – the Millennium Necklace and that wasn't the most intriguing part of what she had to say, because it also transpires that the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle was the Pharaoh from 5,000 years who sealed away the Shadow Magic and now he's been brought back to save the world again. She explained that there would soon be a tournament in which the fate of the world would rest. Alyssa said that it was also at that point that Izzy turned a whiter shade of pale and was slumping against a wall, looking visibly sick. _

_In the third week of summer, an incident occurred that was to set the direction of the holidays. It was a Saturday morning and I was getting dressed; as far as I could tell Izzy was still asleep. However, that was not to last for much longer for Izzy's mobile phone started to ring. It rang for several moments before she was obviously awake and had answered it. There was silence for a few moments, before my sister was bolting from her room, pulling on her dressing gown with the phone still pressed against one ear. I heard her open the front door and pick something up._

_On her return upstairs, she paused briefly in the hall to throw a slipper at me; her excuse was that I deserved it for giving her mobile number to Seto Kaiba. Personally, I don't remember this, but there was an occasion at the Kaiba mansion in which Mokuba and I consumed large amounts of sugar, and it may have been possible that Kaiba took advantage of my hyper state and got it then. Anyway, she retreated back into her room with the rather large parcel and remaining within for a couple of hours._

_When she had calmed down somewhat, Izzy called me in to the garden to help her road-test the new holographic battle system that Kaiba had so kindly sent her, or rather woke her up to get. Apparently, it was a development of the Duel Disks that she and Kaiba use on a regular basis at school. It was worn on the arm like the old one, but this time you had no need to throw the disk into the field, instead it had two extra areas that seemed to be the playing field. Izzy clipped it on to her arm and activated it; two very small holographic projectors shot out and landed at opposite sides of the garden. The duel disk pulled itself forwards on her arm as the one side of the field swung up and over her hand, locking into place. I arched my eyebrows at her as she slotted in her deck and the life point counter went up to 8000. She drew a card and placed it on the field._

_I had to jump back as the Dark Magician appeared a few meters in front of me in a swirl of lights, more real than I had ever seen it._

_Izzy waved the typed letter that had been sent with the duel disk at me and I read it: Seto Kaiba was inviting my sister to come and participate in his Battle City Tournament in Domino City. He knew that she probably wouldn't have time to go and fetch a duel disk when she arrived, so he had taken the liberty of sending it to her and registering her in Battle City himself. It also said, seeing as she would end up suffering with jet lag on the day before the start of the tournament, this would gave her time to work out how to use it, but in exchange, he would have the right to duel her at some point in the tournament._

_When I asked why she was going to do it, she did not answer, but simply removed the Dark Magician from her field and her deck from the disk, deactivating it, drawing the projectors back in. She shrugged, glancing behind us to the house, before she muttered that it was something that had to be done. It's something that the Pharaoh or Yami as she still prefers to call him, is destined to do and she'll do anything in her power to help him. There was a little postscript at the end of the letter that she pointed to; Mokuba was inviting me to come too._

_She tilted her head towards the house, adding: "_Come on. He's hasn't given me much time. We need to tell our parents and start packing_." She waved the plane tickets at me; "_He's starting the tournament this coming Friday_."_

_I didn't think it would be worth telling her that Mokuba had called me the day before yesterday and sent the tickets for Alyssa, Simon, Cassie and Sam. We were all going with her to Battle City; whether she liked it or not. We just left that little piece of information until we were 3,500 feet in the air, and she couldn't do anything to stop us._

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The owner of the small gaming shop just off the main streets of Domino City Centre glanced up from his newspaper as the front door to the shop was wrenched open so ferociously that the hinges rattled their protest at the action, and a blond boy of about thirteen darted in from the streets, slamming the door behind him.

"Can I help you?" The young boy didn't seem to hear him, as he looked frantically around the shop for something, his eyes darting up at every other possible sound from the streets outside.

The game storeowner pushed his stool backwards and it scraped against the floor. "Are you sure you don't need any help?"

The boy jumped away from the shelves, jerking, having finally heard the owner for the first time. He gulped, admitting, "I'm being chased by someone and I'd really not be caught by her if I can help it."

"_Her_?"

The boy gave a pained look and shifted uncomfortably, "Yes, her. She's been chasing me all morning and I really need to go and find my sister in the city."

Something in the boy's eyes made the old man think of his own grandson and he waved towards the counter, "Stay down here; I'll send whoever it is off for you."

Several moments later, the door to the game shop opened a second time and a young girl clutching a teddy bear in one hand appeared in the doorframe and surveyed the empty store.

"_Rebecca_?! What are you doing here?"

"Mister Moto, you haven't seen a blond boy with chocolaty brown eyes have you? I'm looking for him."

The boy closed his eyes as he heard the old man say, "I saw a boy fitting that description about ten minutes ago, Rebecca. I think he went that way."

There was a slight pause as the girl registered this and evidently nodded, "Thank you, Mister Moto and if you see Yugi tell him I said hello."

The door creaked open again for the third time in so few minutes and slammed shut - the sound echoing through the small game shop.

"It's alright, I've sent her away for you, so it's Rebecca Hawkins that you're hiding from, then?" The old man chuckled as he returned to the counter; "You're the mysterious boy from England that she wouldn't stop talking about when she and her grandfather stayed with us for New Year. Arthur Hawkins is an old friend of mine."

The boy shuddered as he stood up and came out from behind the counter, "Regrettably, yes. I didn't know she was in the city until my friend spotted her. We were waiting for another friend of ours who was running late when she noticed us, so I had to take off in the other direction, leaving the others behind."

"You understand that you can't keep running from things," the game shop owner said with a wave of his hand, "Last year, my grandson had some troubles with some boys in his class. He ended up defending them against an older boy in another class; he got beaten up for it though, but the two boys were grateful to him for what he had done for them and now the three of them are as thick as thieves." The old man chuckled again, looking at his watch, "So facing your troubles, once in a while can have positive effects, and speaking of my grandson, he and his friends have gone to watch the start of Battle City. They should be back soon."

The boy nodded, "We're here for that too – my sister and me and some of our friends from England."

"Really? It's a bit far away to just watch a tournament."

The boy shook his head, "We're not here to watch. Well, I am, but my sister is one of the participants. She's competing in Battle City." He ran his fingers along a shelf, picking up one of the new Dungeon Dice Monsters Game boxes that had come in a few weeks ago. It wasn't the top seller that Duel Monsters was, but it still was proving to be quite popular. "So Duke was right," the boy muttered quietly, more to himself, "It is out then. I didn't think it would be out this soon."

Something in the old man's mind clicked and he pointed at the boy, "I though I recognised you from somewhere; you were at Tokyo Tower in April when Duke Devlin challenged the King of Games to a game of Dungeon Dice Monsters. I saw you on the television; you're her brother, aren't you? You must be Mike Corbey."

Mike smiled slightly, putting the game back on the shelf, "That's my sister, Izzy. Duke sent my sister an email about three months ago, telling her that Industrial Illusions had agreed to fund the game globally. I wanted to have a look at them myself. It hasn't got to England yet, but it should be there soon…" His phone rang at that moment, he excused himself and answered it, "Hey, Cassie! _What_? Are you sure? _She can't have disappeared into thin air_!" Mister Moto watched as Mike paused, listening to the voice on the other end, "What is it about our sisters and pulling disappearing acts? Alyssa yesterday and now Izzy. _I hear you Cassie_, I'll meet you and Simon by the fountain in ten minutes."

He clicked his phone off and turned again to Mister Moto, as he stored it back in his pocket, "I'm sorry, I've gotta go; that was Cassie, one of my friends - they just saw Izzy walk into a tent and when they followed her, she'd gone – vanished into thin air."

The old man raised his eyebrows at that, "Thin air?"

"Yeah," Mike nodded with a roll of his eyes "This stuff tends to happen to my sister," he added, "You get used to it. Knowing her, she'll probably show up at some point later today with Kaiba in tow."

"Seto Kaiba, the organiser of Battle City? Former world champion?"

Mike nodded as he rose to his feet and started towards the door, "That's the one – he won't leave my sister alone and the only time that he did was the time that she'd neglected to inform him we were all going on holiday. I swear he would have challenged her to a duel right then and there at the airport when we came home if Mokuba hadn't stopped him."

"He's quite a persistent fellow then," the old man chuckled, rubbing his hands together, "Sounds like Jonouchi, my grandson's friend and oh, Mike when you find your sister," the younger boy paused at the door frame and looked back at the game store owner, "Could you wish her luck from me and my grandson, Yugi, won't you? Something tells me she's going to need it."

"I will," Mike smiled, holding the door to the Kame Game Shop; "I hope to see you around, Mister Moto and thank you."

* * *

**A/N: And so begins the meetings of complete strangers. **

**This sequel came about when I was thinking how to get around writing the whole six series plus one extra, and so I came up with the idea of summarising the events of the series in each chapter with one character's POV. This one you might guess is based on the mini-adventures in between Duelist Kingdom and Battle City - the stuff with Rebecca and Duke with a few extra bits thrown it with Mike (Izzy's younger brother) and guest star Grandpa Moto.**

**If you can guess who's turn it is next time and which guest star turns up? If you can guess correctly, I'll give you a virtual cookie.**

**Til next time, have fun and review.**


	3. Hope

**A/N: Welcome back, next stop is the Battle City Tournament and so I'll hand it over to Alyssa...**

**Disclaimer - I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! I do own my own characters.**

Chapter Two - Hope

_I'd had a bad feeling about this from the start – a really bad feeling, like the ones you get went to walk into a room blindfolded and you just know you'll walk into something and fall flat on you face._

_Ever since we got back from the Museum that day in June and found that the Spirit of the Puzzle was an ancient pharaoh from 5,000 years ago and that he was needed to save the world from destruction, I knew that something was going to happen. It was merely a question of waiting for it. _

_The fate of the world is a big thing – I can kind of understand why Izzy looked like she did when we left the museum. I mean, Duelist Kingdom wasn't huge, I know she went to rescue her brother, and it sort of snowballed out from there, into her saving Mike and Seto and Mokuba Kaiba and their company, but still it wasn't saving the world or anything huge like that._

_And doing it in a tournament, for crying out loud; one would assume these things would be solved in big death-defying global battles, but apparently not according to Ishizu Ishtar, the Egyptian woman with the Millennium Necklace that sees into the future, who scared us half-to-death at the museum._

_I believe Izzy went back several times to the museum in the following weeks to have further chats with Ishizu and to allow the Pharaoh to put in his own opinion on the issue. After one such visit, Izzy called me and said bitterly that Ishizu had shown the stone tablet to Kaiba and told him the meaning of it and he had agreed to host a tournament in Japan, which fits roughly around the time that he stopped showing up at school._

_Joy! What things to look forward to._

_The other thing that had me rattled was Bakura – the 'oh-so delightful' Spirit of the Ring. When he takes over my body, I blank out; I can't remember, however hard I try; I can never remember. There are occasions that I can see and remember what he's up to, like that rather vicious snowball fight he and the Pharaoh had back in December before Simon and Mike dumped the piles of snow on them both. He allowed me to see it, simply because he wanted someone to complain to when Cassie and I got home._

_When we were on Duelist Kingdom, just after the duel with Pegasus, I blanked out as soon as the others had gone back up to the rooms. I know Bakura took over; I can feel him shoving my own mind out of the way when he wants to take control, so I know that it is him, but he did something. The next thing that I'm aware of is that I'm standing outside the bathroom with blood on my top and a nasty cut on one of my fingers with absolutely no memory of how it could have happened._

_When we later found out what had happened to Pegasus, something inside of me already knew what Bakura must have done and how I really got those bloodstains. _

_He scares me, I admit it, but it's the times when Bakura is quiet that he's the most frightening - he's been terribly quiet for weeks now and that has left me with a sinking feeling that he must up to something, I just didn't know what. _

_Mokuba rang us in the middle of the second week of summer, and invited us to come to Battle City, his brother's new tournament. Kaiba had already registered Izzy and was sending over a special parcel to her in the next few days. He also added that if we could get duel disks ourselves then, there was no reason why we couldn't compete either._

_Mokuba begged us not tell Izzy quite yet. He mentioned something about his brother wanting to give her a special wake up call._

_We later found out that Kaiba had had her new duel disk delivered to her front door on a Saturday and actually called her to go and fetch it. Knowing what she's like first thing in the morning, particularly on Saturdays, it's no wonder Seto wasn't trying to commit suicide. Cassie and I had a bet on whether or not she would likely throw something or hit Kaiba the next time that she sees him. _

_We carried out Mokuba's instructions – not telling Izzy until we were up in the air and she couldn't do anything to stop us from coming with her. There was a brief moment in which she started to give logical explanations why we shouldn't be there, but after a moment, she had sighed and left the matter alone._

_The flight itself was uneventful and passed without issue. I spent most of it watching the in-flight movies and listening to my rock music as those around me drifted off to sleep. It was hard trying not to think about the implications of Battle City. I knew that it was important to Izzy and the Pharaoh, but how would it affect the rest of us, I honestly didn't know. _

_Several hours passed before Izzy woke up suddenly, calling a single name - none that we knew, scaring the heck out of her brother and Simon who had both been sitting next to her. _

_When she had drunk a glass of water, Izzy mentioned that she had just seen a child, a lost and frightened child, but then she had shaken her head and would say no more about the issue, preferring to stare outside the plane at the endless sky. _

_We arrived at Domino City late afternoon on Thursday, just in time to see familiar faces around the city – some we were glad of seeing such as Mako Tsunami and Mai Valentine and others that we were not so keen on seeing, like Rex Raptor and Weevil Underwood. Cassie still hasn't forgiven him for throwing her off that boat yet; I doubt she's going to do it in the foreseeable future._

_Mai saw and headed over to us, waving. She was pleased to see us, admitting that she had spent most of the day looking for Izzy who was a guaranteed competitor in any duelling competition, hosted by Seto Kaiba or not. Izzy was about to tell her that we had just arrived, but she was interrupted by the sound of a helicopter, which signalled the arrival of the man of the hour himself – Seto Kaiba. We looked up to see him leaning out of the helicopter, wearing one of his new duel disks, the same design as the one that was currently safely stored in Izzy's bag. He explained the general principle of Battle City and that to enter a duellist needed to own a Duel Disk available from the major gaming shops in the city. _

_We could see that Kaiba was smirking down at Izzy who merely glared back at him; clearly she had not forgotten the Saturday morning wake-up call and neither had he. They continued to stare at each other for several moments, before Simon hit Izzy around the back of the head, breaking the eye contact._

_She turned to him indignantly, rubbing her head as Kaiba finished his speech from on high, adding that duellists were to report back to this courtyard tomorrow at 8:30am to find out the rules he was inflicting on the all participants in the tournament._

_When Kaiba and his helicopter had flown away and the crowds of duellist began to disperse- chattering excitedly, Mai observed that if we wanted one of the new gaming systems we'd better go and fetch them, before they all run out. Izzy shook her head, muttering explanations about the fact that she'd already got one, but she agreed to meet Simon and me back at the hotel._

_We had decided back in England that we both were going to enter and help Izzy and the Pharaoh in anyway that we could- even if it meant joining the tournament. She seemed to accept this without much question, leaving us to make our own decisions – she knew there was little she could do to stop us and so she waved us off with Mike, Cassie and Sam._

_Now, this is the point when everything went hazy. I can clearly recall going to the Game Shop with Mai and Simon and purchasing duel disks. I know we said goodbye to Mai outside the shop and had begun walking towards the place we were staying for the night. I know that Simon left his bag in the shop and went back to get it. I know everything then went black. _

_The next thing I know is that I'm waking up in the middle of a cemetery with all six locater cards that Kaiba wanted for the Finals, and a bandage round my left arm. Curious, I touched the bandage, yelping when it hurt - badly. I pulled a face as I stacked the cards on top of each other, revealing the place of the finals – one of the large sports stadiums in Domino City; wondering what on earth had happened that had caused me to end up here - something about this was not good._

_I tried to shrug the thoughts way as I left the graveyard; the Finals were as good a place as any to start looking for the others. Izzy was bound to show up there sooner or later, if she wasn't there already._

_Knowing Izzy, she and the others would be panicking about me by now and as usual my hunches were right. The moment that they and Mai saw me walking into the stadium, they jumped on me, quite literally in Cassie's case, demanding to know why I wasn't back in hospital._

_I blinked at them; convinced that I had not heard them correctly. Since when had I been in hospital? I didn't remember that bit, but then again I can't remember anything from getting the Duel Disk to waking up in that cemetery earlier, so I suppose they may have had a point. I was even more surprised to see that Duke had appeared out of nowhere and that Simon had qualified for the finals. I held up my hands in defeat and asked for an explanation and concise one if at all possible. _

_To put it shortly, there were these Rare Hunters out all over the City looking for the Egyptian God Cards – cards of immense power and strength and of all coincidences, Izzy ended up with one and Kaiba had another. Their leader, an enigmatic character by the name of Marik still had the last one and the Millennium Rod; his name gave me a weird sense of déja vu like I had met him before. When I voiced this, Izzy nodded and explained that it was him who was responsible for that little detour to the Shadow Realm we took in school, but I know that wasn't it. There was something else._

_I shrugged it away as Cassie told went on to tell me that they found me – all bludgeoned and bloody with a large wound running down the side of my upper arm, which at least that explained the bandage. Well, technically, they never found me, it was a lad who called himself Namu who found me and was supporting my limp form while he tried to find some help._

_Again coincidence struck and the first people that he ran into were my sister, Sam, Mike and Simon who had just qualified for the Finals. There is definitely something odd about that; I had no idea why the others didn't pick up on it, even when moments later they were attacked by more Rare Hunters and the three of them were taken to a large warehouse by the dockside where Mokuba Kaiba had already been taken. Sam had taken me to the hospital._

_Izzy, continuing the tale, had in the meantime gone to find her own opponents in the form of a crazed magician and a mime- both of who were conveniently more Rare Hunters under the command of Marik. At some point, Seto Kaiba showed up and started following her around while she tried to find the rest of us. The voice of Marik told her that we were in danger and of course, she started to panic and came to locate us with Kaiba in tow._

_According to Mike, who had showed up with Mokuba in a helicopter, the pair of them had just ended a tag-team duel with some more Rare Hunters and had both finished qualifying for the Finals when they found them. Apparently, the pair of them make excellent duelling partners when they want to work together – note to self never challenge Izzy and Kaiba to a tag-team duel, not unless suicide is an option._

_At this point, I decided that I was missing something - hadn't they just said that the boys were in a warehouse with Cassie. What had happened for them to get to the helicopter from the warehouse? And where was she?_

_Mike waved his hand and explained that he and Mokuba had managed to climb out of the warehouse, but Cassie hadn't - instead telling them to find their respective older siblings._

_Both the Corbey and the Kaiba siblings had then high-tailed it over to the docks where Cassie and Simon were waiting for them. Unfortunately, they were both being controlled by Marik at this point into his mind-slaves and forced Izzy into duelling Simon on the pier resulting in the loser getting dragged to the depths of the ocean._

_Izzy tried everything to get through to him - using his Red Eyes Black Dragon to even giving him the Millennium Puzzle, but nothing seemed to be working or so they had though, but something she said must have broken through Marik's control._

_At some point, Sam, Mai and Duke all showed up and watched as Izzy blasted herself to free Simon and removed her disk and put it to one side – theoretically ending the duel, but for some reason, the holograms had not yet deactivated, leaving Simon enough time to blast himself to release the other key and remove his own disk; the only problem was that this was the moment that the countdown ended and both of them were hoisted into the air by the anchor and plunged into the dragged into the ocean and to certain death._

_They had not counted on the fact that Mai was actually a darn good swimmer and managed to help them reach their respective keys and swim over to where Duke and Kaiba helped them up out of the water._

_Simon had then handed the Puzzle back to Izzy, apologising profusely for trying to kill her earlier. She had just thrown her arms around him, muttering something about it taking more than mind control to break their friendship._

_Once he was convinced that Izzy was not going to die, Kaiba declared that it was time to move to the Battle City Finals, but as three of the finalists were now soaking wet and needed time to change into drier clothes, he conceded that they would follow on shortly._

_They had been at the stadium for ten minutes waiting for the other finalists before I had shown up at the stadium; followed soon after by a guy that the others addressed as Namu and introduced him to me as the one who saved me. He smiled and said that he was glad to be of assistance, I had to force myself to return his smile- there was something about him that wasn't right and I began to wonder why no one else noticed it. But then again, Izzy had been staring at me for several moments in a similar fashion to how I was now staring at Namu._

_We were distracted by the arrival of the seventh finalist who called himself Marik. The others tensed as he approached us – his black cloak swishing in the non-existent wind. There was a flicker of recognition between Namu and Marik as he passed us – too quick to notice if you were not watching them as closely as I was. _

_The security guards who had been standing to one side choose this moment to announce that this wasn't the precise location of the Battle City Finals as one of Kaiba's blimps began its descent to the stadium. I have to say it, but Kaiba certainly know how to put on a show. He even grudgingly allowed the others to come with us. They herded us on to the blimp; I think Kaiba was eager to get the Finals started, the sooner they started, and the faster he would be able to collect the two other God Cards. _

_The shadows began swirling around my vision – forcing my mind once more into the darkness; it could mean only one thing. I suddenly wanted to scream – to shout a warning to someone, but I was too late for them to hear me because the darkness had completely consumed me again._

_I knew nothing else until I became aware of with excruciating pain and cold air blasting at me. I fell to my knees. I didn't know how I got where I was or how I got here. I heard someone call my name – Izzy, I think, somewhere in front of me. She was there before me, swaying back and forth – her God Card - the mighty Slifer the Sky Dragon hovering in the air. We must be duelling._

_I could hear her calling out to me. I could hear Cassie screaming out to me. I could hear Simon and Mike shouting at Kaiba to end the duel – they say I'll be hurt if Izzy attacks. I could hear Kaiba's cold response that if she wants to win, she would have to attack me._

_This must be the end, I thought as I closed my eyes into darkness._

_After what seems like eternity, I opened my eyes, at last the shadows swirled away into a bright light that in turn faded into a stone corridor dimly lit by a softer light. I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the new light, numbly aware that my glasses were not weighting down on my nose, yet I could see as clearly as if I were wearing them._

_I stretched my hands after what seemed like ages; so unused to them responding to my own movement, rather than Bakura's for once. It wasn't exactly an absolutely wonderful feeling; it was just a feeling and that's all that mattered. I was in control._

_I heard movement further along the corridor and I hurried towards it. It was the others – Simon, Mike, Cassie, Sam, Duke, even Seto and Mokuba were all standing around Izzy and a strange man who I can only guess was the Pharaoh. They were all holding out cards to her – six in total, the six cards that would somehow save her from whatever it was that she was facing. I waved at them, but none of them moved. I don't think any of them could see me._

_The Pharaoh who was still standing beside Izzy lifted his head as though somehow he sensed a change in the air. He leant over to her, whispering something in her ear before jerking his head towards me. She turned from the others who began to fade away, as she lifting her head and finally saw me_.

"Alyssa. Are you…?"

"Dead? I hope not; I mean I don't think I am."

"Oh, I don't know what to do anymore; Noah has everyone trapped in stone."

"I know I'm not there with you, but you know that whatever Bakura throws in my path, Izzy, you know I'm always going to be there by your side. Whatever this Noah person is throwing at you, I know you can overcome it. I believe in you and so do the others - no matter hard it gets, never forget that."_ Izzy reached out to touch me, but she began to fade away, _"Please,"_ I begged her as my vision darkened once more, _"Just come back safely, all of you!"

_After a few moments, my vision cleared, I squinted adjusting to the light of my room on the blimp. It was still quite fuzzy, but this soon proved to be a result of simply not wearing my glasses. I scrambled over to the bedside table, where my glasses were most likely to be. Pushing them back on my nose, everything instantly cleared and I sat up, at once noticing that something was missing – the Millennium Ring had gone. It had really and truly gone; that had got be good._

_I was about to announce this to Cassie, only to realise that she wasn't there. In fact none of them were there as I wandered around the blimp – Cassie, Mike, Simon, Izzy, Sam, Mokuba or Kaiba had all mysteriously disappeared. Heck, there was no sign of Marik or the supposed 'Namu' or the mysterious eighth duellist that I still had yet to meet. _

_I sighed as I returned to the room that I was sharing with Cassie and fished out the book I had been reading and headed back out again. If the others were going to show up, the first place they'd go would be the control room and so that was where I would wait for them._

_Kaiba stormed into the control room about ten minutes later, instantly barking orders at the flight crew to fly out of a fiery inferno - not really noticing that I was sitting there. Thankfully, the others were more observant than him when they arrived only a few seconds afterwards. Cassie, once again, jumped on me, knocking me to the ground as she hugged me fiercely and started yelling something about penguins and robots and trolls and monkeys and being trapped in Cyberspace._

_I just stared at her – having lost her at the penguins. _

_Mike came to my confused rescue and explained that they were taken to a virtual world by our old friends, "The Big Five" because apparently whatever Izzy and Kaiba did to them in that Virtual Game last year, the five of them ended up stranded in cyberspace unable to return to their bodies. They wanted to escape from their virtual prison, so enter Seto Kaiba and the others who would serve as such means. _

_Somewhere in the midst of it, Sam got turned into a Robot Monkey and spent a great deal of time sitting on Duke's head. Eventually, they found out that Kaiba and Mokuba were adopted and that a child who claimed that he was the son of Gozaburo Kaiba – Noah Kaiba, was overseeing the whole thing. _

_I tilted my head at that name - that was the name that Izzy had mentioned on the flight over to Japan and again in that weird dream thing. _

_Apparently Noah was furious that that Kaiba Corporation had gone to Seto rather than to him. He was not fazed at all by the fact he only existed in the Virtual World, and turned Seto and Mokuba into stone, and therefore resulted in them both being needed to be rescued by Izzy once again. _

_It got even weirder when Gozaburo Kaiba showed up, challenging Kaiba to another duel and Noah actually started helping the guys by show them the way out. He sent a satellite to blow the battleship where this Virtual World was based, and realising what he had done, decided to make up for what he had done to them by helped the others to escape, but asked Izzy to remain behind to fetch Seto who was still off duelling his step-father._

_Simon said that the rest of them were waiting for Izzy and the Kaiba brothers in the blimp and only just managed to get them all aboard and take off before the ship was blasted into smithereens._

_Kaiba scoffed at their explanation and said that it was time for the Battle City Finals and that they would all be arriving at there soon. Again, the sinking feeling returned. I knew that this really wasn't going to end well. _

_While we were waiting, I asked Cassie about what had happened with the rest of the finals and more importantly did they know that Namu was Marik. She waved her hand at me; they'd worked that one out when evil side of Marik introduced himself during Simon's duel with the fake Marik, who is actually called Odion and is from what the other could tell, quite a decent bloke. He even apologised for his actions._

_The following duel was eventful to say the least – Mai had drawn the short straw and ended up duelling against Evil Marik who had decided that he was going to hold the duel in the Shadow Realm. She didn't stand a chance – even with the Pharaoh taking the brunt of Marik's Egyptian God Card's final attack._

_Surprisingly, Kaiba agreed to postpone his duel until Mai and 'Izzy', who was still out cold from the force of the Winged Dragon of Ra's attack, were taken below. At that point, Izzy, rather than the Pharaoh, had woken up, staggering to her feet, muttering something about she was all right._

_Cassie went on to say that the last quarterfinal battle was between Seto and the mysterious eighth duellist who turned out to be Ishizu Ishtar – her brother apparently is Marik. You know, she could have saved us a whole lot of bother by telling us that it was him, but never mind. We arrived at the same conclusion in the end. Anyway, she used the Millennium Necklace to predict his every move, until Kaiba got fed up with that and played his Blue Eyes White Dragon and blasted her to pieces._

_Ishizu had then given her necklace to Izzy, claiming the power no longer worked for her, but it would do so for Izzy and the Pharaoh. They had all settled down for the night and were woken up the next morning, being rocked and jolted as the aircraft changed course to the battleship and their adventures in the Virtual World._

_Simon had made it a personal battle to rescue Mai and so when the four remaining finalists completed in a four-way duel to see who would battle who when we arrived at Alcatraz Tower later that morning, he made sure that he faced Marik in the first round of the semi finals._

_Kaiba had seemed to focus _his _attention on making sure that it was Izzy that he faced – wanting to get his hands on her God Card before he went on to take Marik's one. _

_Simon had a little better luck than Mai – somehow managing to get rid of the Winged Dragon of Ra, but collapsing before he could sent the final attack, leaving Evil Marik with an automatic pass to the Finals._

_Being completely unsympathetic to the poor boy sprawled out on the floor – half dead, Kaiba had his men declare that the next duel would begin immediately. We protested bitterly about this while trying to wake Simon up - I'm pretty sure that Izzy ended up shouting rather colourful stuff at Kaiba. I believe that the last time she yelled at him like that was after he fell off that Tower back at Duelist Kingdom. Its kind of funny really, Izzy is the only one of us who has enough guts to shout at Seto Kaiba like that and get away with it. Eventually, he conceded and allowed us to carry Simon down to the blimp and to medical attention on the condition that Izzy came back up soon. _

_I kept one eye on Izzy who after screaming at Kaiba about his _stupid_ tournament had become frighteningly quiet to the point that I became convinced that she would break down in tears. As we neared the blimp, the Pharaoh had taken over, so I guess Izzy must have broken down._

_The Medical team pronounced that he was perfectly healthy in a medical sense, and they could not account for his condition. Cassie and Mike exchanged fearful looks and I don't blame them. It was like Duelist Kingdom all over again. _

_Mokuba who had followed us to the blimp, and radioed to the main land to and told us that the coast patrols were sending a helicopter and that it would arrive soon._

_I could almost feel Izzy's presence, kneeling beside the bed, sobbing, pleading with Simon not to give up and to not give into the shadows. In my mind, I thought I heard her whisper that he'd promised her that he would help them stop Marik._

_The Pharaoh stepped outside the medical room, Izzy still crying bitterly, trailing behind him. He returned a few minutes later, removing the small thin necklace that Izzy always wore with the three glistening white pearl-like orbs and placed it in Simon's hand and muttered something about staying strong._

_Mokuba stood in the doorway and muttered quietly that Seto was waiting and that Izzy should go. His brother would not wait long for her._

_I followed the Pharaoh outside; he paused in the corridor aware that I was still there, slipping control back to Izzy who turned back to me. I asked her if that dream had been real. She nodded. She told me to look after Simon and the others. I touched the cross necklace in response, and she smiled at me, before sinking back into the depths of her mind, once more allow the Pharaoh to take over once more. _

_There had been too much suffering in this tournament, but both he and Izzy had come to far to just give in now. If they gave up now, then Marik would win and everyone else would loose – not just the Pharaoh, but Mai, Odion, Simon and whatever remains of the goodness with Marik's soul. If it was a fight that Kaiba wanted, then it was a fight that he was going to get. As he left to follow Mokuba back up to where Kaiba was waiting to start the duel, the Pharaoh thanked me too, for being there when Izzy needed me the most._

_There were some parts of the Virtual World story that they had not told me, like the fact that it had been Izzy – and not the Pharaoh who had taken Kaiba's place against Noah when he and Mokuba had been turned to stone. She had defended Kaiba despite his infuriating obsession about shadowing and defeating her in a duel. Last time I checked the score stood at 36 victories to Izzy, but who's counting. She was the one who was struggling to hold 100 life points against Noah's 10,000 while the others were turned to stone one turn at a time._

_In the last few moments that Mokuba had with Noah, the brother he'd never known he had been told that Seto who would surely have lost his body to Gozaburo if Izzy had not been there. He said he was sorry for using them all and asked Mokuba that when he got the chance to thank Izzy for reminding him that the true strength that comes from those who care about you – even those who can't be there with you. Smiling slightly, I knew that Izzy had understood my message._

_We sat in silence, watching Simon and the periodic explosions from the top of the Tower as two God Cards and their respective owners clashed somewhere above us. Sam flinched each time we heard an explosion from the Tower - Duke keeping his arm around her in comfort._

_Simon woke up, clutching Izzy's necklace tightly in one hand and sitting up, just in time to hear the announcement that the last semi-final battle was over and that Izzy had won - better make that 37 victories to her which means that it was just Marik left to go. _

_The Doctors pronounced Simon to be perfectly healthy and the seven of us headed back up to the Tower where Kaiba was stalking away from the stadium with Mokuba at his heels. The Pharaoh was staring at the three cards in his hands – the two God Cards and Simon's Red Eyes Black Dragon, and so did not notice us until Simon shouted at him._

_The Pharaoh jerked his head up, finally noticing the seven of us standing there looking like complete idiots and before he quite knew what was happening, he had been attacked by Mike, Simon and myself, all knocking him to the floor. Izzy sat back up, rubbing her head from where Simon had hit her for believing him to be dead, or nearly dying. She pulled a face at us, hugging Simon fiercely and hitting him on the arm for making her believe that he was dead; and something tells me that although we couldn't see him, I'm pretty sure that the Pharaoh was smiling too._

_After handing the necklace back to her and she fastened it back around her neck, Simon began looking around for where Kaiba had gone. This was after all still a tournament and there were third and forth places that needed to be awarded before we got on to the final duel between Evil Marik and the Pharaoh – Kaiba won for reference but Simon put up a darn good fight._

_While the two of them were battling for bronze, Mike started twitching and rubbing his forehead as though getting a major headache. His sister asked him if he was okay and he nodded, shaking the sensation away, before it was time to head back to the top of the Tower for the final showdown where Marik was waiting._

_I finally saw something that I hadn't noticed previously – that Marik was wearing my Millennium Ring. I pointed this out, but he sneered at me._

_Just before the duel started, Kaiba and Ishizu showed at the arena to give the Pharaoh a card that Kaiba believed to the only thing that could beat Ra – although it only actually stalled Marik for one turn, the basic principle still applied – the Pharaoh trusted Kaiba enough to put the card in his deck. _

_Evil Marik wasn't going to let this golden opportunity pass without having some extra fun - inflicting several game bonuses into the shadow game. First, was that Mai was still trapped in the Shadow Realm and would soon be lost to it if the Pharaoh lost, and the second, and far more interesting one, was that both of the lighter halves of the two finalists were to be used as a ransom – for every life point lost, they would fade into the shadows, ultimately taking their darker halves with them._

_The match continued for some fashion, spitting at each other's life points before the God Cards came out on the field and the real fight began. Marik somehow managed to transfer most of his life points into attack points for Ra. Despite this, the Pharaoh was somewhat reluctant to blast his opponent into smithereens, aware that any attack would be at the cost of loosing the real Marik to the Shadow Realm._

_While he was contemplating this conundrum, Mike's eyes began to darken just as Izzy's do when the Pharaoh takes over, and began talking to the rest of us in a manner that nearly made Cassie jump over the top of the tower and Duke and Simon move menacingly towards the younger lad, because it wasn't Mike, but Marik – the good half of him, but still the one who had sent the Rare Hunters after them in Battle City and caused all the suffering to them._

_He knew now that he had done wrong and that through his anger, his darker half had been born. He had listened to the wrong person. He told the Pharaoh to attack him before it was too late, but everyone deserves a second chance, Marik included, and through some hocus-pocus and some extremely cool manoeuvres in which every monster in the Pharaoh's deck started swirling around the stadium, leaving the not-so-crazy Marik shaking slightly, but definitely alive. He shouted something about not listening to his darker half anymore, before surrendering the duel._

_The official declared that Izzy Corbey was the winner of Battle City and the rest of us took the hint and clambered on the stadium to congratulate the Pharaoh. He had a slightly vacant expression on his face for a minute or two; I presume he was just checking that Izzy was alright before he turned to us._

_The Ishtars came over to make their peace with the Pharaoh and fulfil the rest of their destiny by showing him the tattoos on Marik's back that had been passed from one generation of tomb keeper to the next, waiting for the return of the Pharaoh._

_Of course, this is where we hit the problem, once again. It turns out that this wasn't a quest to find the Pharaoh's lost memories; no, no, this was a quest to find the tools that he needed to find his lost memories, the actual quest apparently will come later._

_Why are these things never simple?_

_Marik also said that everyone who had been sent to the Shadow Realm by his darker half would all be restored even now. I put my hand up, interrupting him, and asked if that was the case, then why had I woken up before the others. Marik looked at me and said that my soul was never banished to the Shadow Realm by his darker half; Bakura had been the one who had been banished and so for me, it was only a matter of just waking up._

_Marik handed over the Millennium Rod and the Winged Dragon of Ra to the Pharaoh, but he returned the Millennium Ring back to me, and I slipped it back around my neck. However much Bakura scares me; it's probably better that I know where both he and the Ring are – at least then, I know that Pharaoh is nearby to deal with him if needs be. Beside, if I got rid of it, it'd just come back anyway._

_At this point Kaiba, most likely still disgruntled that he had lost, announced that the tower would self-destruct in one hour and if we wanted to live we'd be off the island by that time. He stormed off with Mokuba in tow, leaving the rest of us to get down to the blimp._

_We found Mai, or rather she found us on our way down. She greeted us enthusiastically, thanking both Izzy and Simon for what they did for her, before we all trooped down to blimp to get away. _

_It was getting later and later and still there was no sign of the Kaiba brothers and the blimp decided that it was not going to work. We still had to get off the Island when Mike remembered the helicopter._

_Mokuba had radioed to the mainland when Simon was injured and it had arrived at some point while we were watching the Finals. We could use it to escape before the Island blew to Kingdom Come._

_Sam went off to fetch the Ishtars while the rest of us called for Seto and Mokuba who still had not shown up. There was nothing – not a whisper or a murmur. They either could not hear us or they were not listening._

_We only just managed to get away before the place exploded, leaving us all with the dread that the Kaiba brothers had not survived._

_Only they had- Kaiba just wanted to put on one last final show, flying his Blue Eyes White Jet out of the flames of the Island and level with us in the helicopter. Mokuba waved at us and reached for his radio. His voice crackled into life on board the helicopter, curious to know why we weren't on the blimp. When Cassie explained, his brother smirked at us and said that he'd forgotten that it hadn't been fixed yet; Simon glared at him through the metal walls of the helicopter._

_The Blue Eyes Jet circled the helicopter in a large swoop before settling beside the helicopter again. I heard Simon muttered something about Kaiba being a show off as the Jet settled back into view and Mokuba's voice echoed through the helicopter, admitting that there was something else before he forgot. He directed Izzy toward a locker in the helicopter and she pulled out a small white envelope. The speaker crackled into life once more as Mokuba added cheerily:_ "Happy Birthday Izzy!"

_There was a slight pause on the helicopter as Mokuba's words sunk in – each of us exchanging guilty looks with our neighbour, we had all completely forgotten with the whole world saving thing, that today was also Izzy's birthday._

_Even Mike had forgotten, and she was his own sister; poor Marik looked absolutely horrified that he had inadvertently caused Izzy to end up fighting for herself and the rest of the world on her birthday and immediately began mumbling apologises to her._

_She laughed and waved it off as though it weren't important as she opened the white envelope and pulled out a birthday card. I peered over her shoulder, it read: "_Happy birthday Izzy from Mokuba," _and right at the bottom of the card in handwriting that I hardly recognised was:_ "and Seto. Thanks for listening."

_I pulled a face as I read that, as Kaiba's voice, rather than Mokuba's crackled through the speaker: _"I'll see you in September, Izzy – that title and those God Card will be mine."

_We watched as the jet blasted past us and away into the distance. When it had gone the rest of us rounded on Izzy, demanding to know what the heck Kaiba had meant by: _"Thanks for listening,"_ and more to the point, how did he know that it was her birthday._

_It turns out that she'd had a nightmare last night – something about being slowly strangled and a dagger, but evidently, it had been enough to spook her to prevent her from getting back to sleep and so she went to get a coffee when low and behold who should turn up for the same thing, but Seto Kaiba. While trying to translate the scriptures on the Winged Dragon of Ra, he'd got kicked out of the room by his brother and ordered to get some coffee._

_She claims that Seto was rather civilised for the early hours of the morning and that they had both ended up just talked until the blimp had veered off course. She guessed that she must have mentioned that it was her birthday at some point. Cassie noted that probably explained why Kaiba and Izzy showed up together._

_Izzy put her hands up and admitted that that was all- nothing more; Simon and Mike still looked suspicious, but she put her hands to her face and wouldn't say much else until we reached Domino City once more and she'd switched with the Pharaoh._

_The Ishtars said their goodbyes to us, once again thanking the Pharaoh for all he had done for them – happy to be a family at last. Mai and Duke then choose this moment to say their own farewells and headed back to their respective cars. Most of us followed them, but the Pharaoh chose to remain behind, nodding and waving at them._

_When we returned to find Izzy sitting on the edge of the dock, swinging her legs over the side, tilting her head to one side, holding the three God Cards._

_I don't deny that there is a part of me, a selfish part, that envies her; that she can trust the Pharaoh impeccably and know that he wouldn't intentionally hurt her, but there is another much smaller part of me that knows that I am the lucky one._

_There will be a price to pay at the end for all that they do for us; I just don't know what it will be._

* * *

It wasn't exactly cold morning, but neither was it was it warm. There was an edge to the morning air that made the girl tug her jacket closer to her as she walked through the park; it was the end of August, yet for some reason, it felt more like October.

It was only about eight in the morning, but she had already been awake for several hours, listening to her younger sister snore lightly on the bunk below her. She had been sitting up watching the dawn creep in through the window and gleam off the gold disk in her hand – the ring that for a few short hours she had believe to have lost for good – but such was her luck, it came back.

She had told her mother, already up that she needed to go for a walk and clear her head. Her mother had been a little sceptical about her going out at this time in the morning- she had glanced at her daughter's arm where goodness knows when had been sliced up. She had to promise her mother before she had left, that she wouldn't be too long, before she headed out the door.

She had walked; just walked- walking seemed to put the thoughts that had been plaguing her since they had arrived home from Japan a few days ago. She walked along the roads until she reached the park where she debated that most of all this crazy stuff all started.

She had walked into the park and wandered around – pushing bushes and leaves out of her way as she mad her way to the small stream that ran through the middle of the park. She sat there in silence, hugging her knees, holding the Millennium Ring in one hand.

"May I join you?" Alyssa startled at the voice, blinking as she tried to shove the Ring out of sight and turning towards the source of it. She almost scrambled to her feet, alarmed when she saw the white haired boy. He put his hands up defence and added, "I'm not going to hurt you; you just look as though you need some company."

Settling slightly, Alyssa waved her hand next to her, inviting him to sit which he did, "You're Alyssa Trent aren't you – one of the Battle City finalist."

She nodded miserably, pushing her glasses up her nose, "If you know who I am, then I guess I should know who you are?"

"I'm Ryo Bakura."

Alyssa chuckled lightly, glancing at him before turning back to the stream, "_That figures_…" He tilted his head at her, "It's just you look exactly like someone else that I know."

He laughed, "Well, they do say that your counter-part is somewhere out there."

"Yeah, they do. Crazy things happen."

"I guess they do - a friend of mine - Anzu told me about a crazy mime in the City Centre that almost jumped on Jonouchi when he took off with a duel disk and headed into to the city – somewhere."

"Do you mean the Silent One?"

It was his turn to stare at her.

"_You know him_?"

Alyssa shook her head, "Not really – Izzy told me about him. It was her that he went to find." She let out a sigh, throwing her hands into the air in exasperation, "Everything is crazy; I don't really know anymore – my friends nearly got themselves killed and I ended up in the hospital. My friends and I, we've all done incredible things lately, but we've also been hurt and in pain and suffering. We've been alone and afraid of what would happen next…"

"You want to know if it's worth it; if the pain is worth it?"

She nodded, fingering the rope around her neck, "Something like that."

Ryo blinked several times, breathing deeply as he rubbed his lower jaw. He started quietly, Alyssa only just able to hear him, "A couple of years ago my family was in a car accident; me and my dad, we walked away from it, but my mother and my sister weren't so fortunate." He paused as past memories floated in his own mind, before he shook his head, "It was hard for my dad and me; he had just been commissioned to dig in Egypt. In the end, it drove us closer together: he took a position at the Domino Museum over in Japan and I went with him." The white haired boy broke out suddenly into a smile, "My best friends are over there -so, yes, the pain and suffering are worth the good times – always!"

There was a moment of silence before Alyssa too smiled.

Unfortunately the silence was not to last for much longer as from behind the trees came a flash of light and a roar of thunder, before a cry of frustration echoed through to them.

Alyssa shrugged, standing back up, "That sounds like Izzy and Simon." She peered through the trees, "Yep, that's them," she jerked her hand towards where her friends were in mid-duel, "Simon had one of his cards stolen in Battle city and Izzy won it back for him. They agreed to duel for it back here after the tournament had finished, although whatever possessed them to do it this early, I'll never know." She tilted her head towards the other boy, "You wanna come and watch."

Ryo shook his head as he too stood up, "I'm good. I need to find my dad – I left the hotel rather abruptly and I didn't leave a note. He'll be wondering where I am." He began to walk off, "It's been lovely talking to you."

"You too, maybe I'll see you again, Ryo Bakura." Alyssa waved to him, "And thanks."

* * *

**A/N: So we've had Mike and Grandpa Moto; and now Alyssa and Ryo Bakura - who do you think is it going to be next? If you guess right, I'll send you a virtual cookie. Next stop will be the adventures with the Pyramid of Light.**

**Til next time, have fun and review.**


	4. Freedom

**A/N: Hey and welcome back to another chapter of Strangers Like Me, and this time we'll be taking a trip through the Movie... but before we do I'm just going to clarify some things first - a lot of time takes between each arc if you like - so this one is nearly a year after Battle City. It also means that if Seto has known the others for quite some time... and so without further ado, I shall hand over to Cassie...**

**Disclaimer - I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! I only own my own characters - or the main plot of the chapter (that belongs to Waffles4eva)**

**Dedication - Waffles4eva without whom this chapter would not exist**

* * *

Chapter Three - Freedom

_Alyssa and I made a promise when all this crazy stuff started that we would never save the world wearing our school uniforms. We made it last for about sixteen months before that promise fell to pieces – not only did we end up saving the world in our school uniforms, but I also had to do it in my PE kit. _Yippie!

_I don't really know how we managed to explain the horrendous state that we where in when we all got home that April evening, but then again, the rather large monsters showing up all over the globe and attacking does tend to distract ones parents from our own activities._

_It started like any other Thursday afternoon – my sister and Izzy were preparing to go home while I was getting ready to play netball. I watched my sister waved to the other girl and leave. Izzy, to start to head off in the direction of her own home, but soon stopped when she heard Monica and Sam calling her. She waited patiently for them to catch up before the three of them walked across the car park together._

_Unfortunately, they didn't get much further than that – for at the other end of the car park was a crowd of duellists all waiting to get a piece of the 'King of Games' and her three Egyptian God Cards. This was actually one of the nastier side-effects of winning Battle City last summer, particularly since that certain documentary on the television, but now everybody and anybody who considered themselves to be duellists knew that Izzy Corbey had in her possession the God Cards – three of the most powerful cards in existence._

_Seto Kaiba has tried at least five times since last September to win the God Cards from her, but each time, he has failed spectacularly – the last time they accidentally set off the fire alarm with the explosion from Obelisk the Tormentor and Kaiba's Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon. I am pretty sure that the Pharaoh should have had Kaiba's three Blue Eyes White Dragons and his Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon for the amount of times that the God Cards have been at stake, but for some reason, he refuses to take them. In Battle City, the only rare cards that he collected from other duellists were the God Cards – he had been entitled to take them, but he chose not to._

_Anyway, the hoard of duellists had spotted Izzy and began surging towards her. I could almost imagine the surprise and panic on her face as Monica shoved her and Sam back towards the school doors. This may not have been the wisest of ideas seeing as the doors only open in one direction and in this case, it was the wrong way._

_At this point, I decided to abandon the netball and help Izzy who was being forced against the door with Monica and Sam. There was no way that she was going be able to duel anybody in those conditions, let alone activate her disk without the risk of decapitating someone. I opened the door and dragged the older girl into the school; Monica and Sam - who instantly started moving the large reception sofa in front of the door to stop the mob from pouring into the school, closely followed on behind us. _

_However, we all knew that it was not going to last for long, and Izzy needed to be out of there before that happened, so I took a hold of her and dragged her away once more while Sam held them at bay. We managed to get out of school and on to a bus, before other duellists spotted us, but since the bus was already pulling away, they never caught up with us._

_The bus took us up to the Museum where the stone tablet is still on display – it seems to have taken permanent residence until such a time when the Pharaoh can reclaim his memories and there is no telling when that might be. We hopped off and headed into the Museum to find a pay phone so I could call Alyssa and tell her where I was – that mission soon proved to be redundant because my sister was already there – looking at a poster for a new Egyptian exhibit that was on display. She saw us and waved us over, pointing it out to us. It was some strange blue pyramid thingy that looked eerily like the Millennium Puzzle around Izzy's neck and of course, curiosity got the better of the three of us and we went to take a look._

_We found it and a rather large sarcophagus with a creepy mummy. There was a legend too – it spoke of a powerful Egyptian Sorcerer known as Anubis who tried to take over the world 5000 years ago, but was prevented by the intervention of the 'nameless' Pharaoh – three guesses to whom that is. Before he was destroyed, Anubis promised that he would one day return from the dead and take his revenge - that did not sound good in the slightest. I exchanged a look with Izzy who was certainly thinking along the same lines as I was. I turned to share this with my sister, only to find that she was no longer standing beside me and had gone back over to the mummy case._

_She pointed out a white notice next to it and we read it, wondering what on earth it mean: "_The eye that see what's yet to come, it's vision shall be fulfilled; unless blinded by event predetermined thus light and shadows both be killed._"_

_We were blasted backwards by a blinding white light – crashing painfully to the floor. Alyssa and I woke up almost instantly to find that both the Pyramid of Light and the mummy of Anubis had gone – having vanished into thin air. Izzy woke a moment or two screaming something about coffee pots – scaring the heck both of us before she too realised that the items were missing and scrambled to her feet and started mumbling half sentences about weird dreams and Kaiba. She said something about staying put for police questioning._

_I scoffed at that – we have never listen to her about staying behind before and we had no intention of beginning now so we followed her outside to find that she was being driven away in the back of Kaiba's car. This was not going to be good._

_We followed the car up to Kaiba's Duel Dome where we found Mokuba who told us that once again his brother was challenging Izzy to yet another duel – as if the previous 42 times that he's already had his butt kicked by the Pharaoh didn't matter at all. _

_But this time was different; because Kaiba activated a new trap card which none of us had ever seen before and conveniently also called the Pyramid of Light. It sent up a bright blue light, cracking the roof of the duel dome, before spreading to the four corners around the two duellists, creating a super-sized version of the Pyramid of the Light sealing both Kaiba and the Pharaoh inside. Alyssa and I watched in horror as Obelisk the Tormentor reached out to touch the blue pyramid and dissolved into a thousand pieces – Slifer and Ra following suite._

_This soon proved to be the least of our problems as we stared at the large looming red eye in the middle of the pyramid that decided that it was going to suck my sister and myself into it. We woke up to find ourselves lying on a cold stone floor – we had barely enough time to consider where it was that we were, before we heard a piercing shriek from somewhere in the labyrinth-like place that we had found ourselves in._

_It most certainly was Izzy. Alyssa glanced at me and I caught what she was thinking – we started heading towards where we thought we had heard Izzy, but the problem was that no sooner had we started to move, then a jet of flame spat out at us – Alyssa threw us to the floor as the air singed above our heads. When it had stopped, we both had stood back up cautiously – it was quite clear that we were not welcome wherever it was that we were._

_By the time that we had found Izzy, we had already faced three pit falls, several volleys of arrows, yet another fireball, thunderbolts, tidal waves, monsters, and large spiders and I was beginning whether or not the Millennium Puzzle – which by this point we had decided that was the most logical explanation for where we were – knew that we were not Indiana Jones._

_Izzy has mentioned that she'd been in here several times, but from what I can remember she'd never said anything about the traps – though I suppose if the Pharaoh knows that she is in here, he's hardly likely to set them off._

_Admittedly, it would be a lie to say that we found Izzy; she actually found us and began dragging us back the way we had come screaming something about necromancy. Alyssa translated this for me into there were active stiffs that were now chasing us, waving her hand behind to the legion of the undead that were following us, and we ran faster._

_Alyssa came to a sudden halt in one of the corridors that we had come earlier and turned back to face the legions of the undead still stumbling towards us, and kneeling on the floor. Izzy and I exchanged fearful looks as my sister removed the Millennium Ring from her neck and placed it on the floor and waited. She waited until the closet mummy had within grabbing distance, before she yanked the ring backwards towards her – activating one of the firetraps that we had had come across earlier and setting our undead friends on fire._

_Apparently, Alyssa noted as we booted various flaming limb back through the fire, it wasn't us that the Puzzle was worried about, but Bakura – the Spirit of the Ring. Izzy shot us both a look and asked if there was something that we weren't telling her, but we were saved from answering by some of the stronger mummies breaking through the fire, and still ambling towards us._

We shrieked and started once more to run along the corridor – me yelling at my sister for the disastrous results of her plan; Alyssa shouting her defence of said plan; and Izzy screaming at the both of us to shut up and run faster.

_We followed Izzy down corridors; around corners; up and down stairs of various sizes and through doorways that I was convinced had not been there earlier, but still Izzy seemed to have the best sense of direction in this crazy place and now we had a factor in our favour – the traps that had been constantly activating were no longer doing so – maybe there is some sort of internal safety catch when Izzy is in here, but whatever it was, it was working to our favour as we outran the flaming mummies and left them behind._

_I stopped eventually, checking that we had lost the mummies, practically walking into Izzy and Alyssa who were staring in opposite directions. Izzy pointed towards the large eye-shaped portal that showed the duel outside and she muttered that things weren't going too well for 'Yami' as she still calls him._

_And she was right – as long as the Pyramid of Light was in play, the Pharaoh would have no chance. _

_Alyssa then pointed the large versions of the Pyramid and the Puzzle were fighting it out to and the Millennium Puzzle seemed to losing. She voiced this and Izzy disputed it. They stood in silence for a few moments before they decided it was completely pointless and the best course of action was to: "_Head back toward Anubis' room_" and: "_Then find a way to help Yami._"_

_When I tried to remind them the mummies were back in this direction, but Alyssa simply said that I should be used to all this after Battle City._

_When we were almost there when Izzy sank to the floor, clutching her side, groaning in pain, telling us that she had felt weak all of a sudden. It was then that I noticed the blue energy stream that had been following us. Izzy noted that it might lead us back to Anubis and we agreed – hauling her back to her feet and back along the corridor and to Anubis. _

_We came to a stop a few feet away from Anubis' room – peering around and staring at it for several moments before Izzy asked if we were ready. Alyssa shrugged and said that she just knew Anubis was going to give us a monologue, which inevitably he did._

_He showed us a world tour of the destruction that he was planning. We watched in stunned silence as we watched the Earth's landmarks crumble into dust one by one. It wasn't that the human race didn't try to stop him – the ships and tanks and soldiers were proof enough of that, but we just didn't win._

_Anubis finished by chanting something in a language that I couldn't understand, but clearly someone behind me did. Izzy started mumbling as she repeated his words, trying to get it clear in her own head: "_At the dawn the eighteenth year of light and shadows, the child of fire will be renewed_." She said it was Ancient Egyptian and that his voice seemed familiar, but she got no further than that because our old friends, the flaming mummies had turned up behind us and some other new friends, although not burning, appeared in front of us from caskets._

_This was not good and I said as much to the two older girls – wanting to know how exactly we were going to get out of this, but Alyssa merely smiled and waved her hand to the space above us to where Mike was currently floating and wearing an extremely disgruntled expression. A moment later he was crashing painfully to the floor sending burning limbs everywhere. He scrambled to his feet pulling a flaming foot from his singing hair – demanding an explanation for whatever the heck was going on as the rest of the mummies advanced on us. _

_We gave him the shorten version while beating the undead with their own limbs. We told him quickly about the legend and about Anubis and the vendetta he has got with the Pharaoh, and about the prophecy. My sister jerked her head up at that point from where she was fending off her collection of friends and asked if pre-determined events was the same as fate._

_Izzy's face lit up at that and she shouted across to us that she had an idea. She scurried across the room to the sarcophagus, ducking the mummies trying to take a grab for her and she knelt down beside it and started digging around the coffin for something – leaving the rest of us to deal with the rest of our pals. All of a sudden, our friends expanded and exploded – one by one and became nothing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Izzy shoving something into her shoe – it was something shiny gleaming in the white light that blasted us back to reality._

_I woke to be greeted by the concerned face of Mokuba Kaiba peering down at me and I hugged him, while Mike and Alyssa rose groggily to their feet. Sam steadied them and supported them as they did so. She grinned at us and waved our attention to where the pyramid was shattering into a thousand pieces – leaving the two duellists who were still standing._

_Well, almost – the Pharaoh was still standing, but Kaiba was not – having been flung to one side by Anubis who had taken the CEO's place in the duel._

_Staring past her, I noticed that another person was standing behind us – folding his arms as he watching the duel beneath us. I blinked. It was Pegasus – when did he get here?_

_While the Pharaoh fended off against the new monster that Anubis had summoned, Sam told me that, after getting rid of those duellists at school, she had meet up with Mike who had come to find where his sister was, who still hadn't come home yet. It had been then that they noticed the large blue beam of the Pyramid of Light above Kaiba's Duel Dome, and the question of where Izzy was soon solved. They had got inside, and were greeted by Mokuba Kaiba who confirmed that their respective siblings were in the middle of the blue pyramid._

_Then again it wasn't safe for them either with the floor cracking and moving as it was, making it almost impossible for them to get back out the way they had come in which meant that the only way out was up. At that point, the end of a rope ladder had fallen from the sky and had hit her on the end. They had looked up to see the Game Creator leaning outside his helicopter, shouting at them to hurry up._

_Sam had propelled the younger boys along – reminding them both that Izzy and Kaiba would kill whoever was left alive if Mike and Mokuba didn't get out. They had not needed to be told twice as they scrambled up the ladder and she had followed suite. When they were in the helicopter, some force started dragging Mike out of the helicopter and if the three of them had not grabbed hold of his body then he would have fallen to his death. It was then that Mokuba had noticed Alyssa and me out-cold by the upper railings and they had decided that the best action was to come down to us. Mokuba added that it had been quite a shock when they watched various burns appear on our faces with no idea of how they could get there. _

_They finished the explanation just in time to see the Pharaoh summon the three Egyptian Gods back to the field and use Obelisk to do what he did best - blasting the Sphinx into pieces and taking Anubis with it._

_Alyssa rubbed her hands together in glee, grinning widely as she said: "_And so, another World-Saving event draws to a close. We've seen a lot of trouble here today, but it's turned out well in the end. The Pyramid is destroyed; Anubis is gone; the God Cards prevailed once again, and it is almost certain that Izzy is about to extent the hand of friendship to Kaiba…_"_

_I scoffed at that – but Izzy's voice drifted up to us as she sprinted over to the fallen duellist who was groggily coming to:_ "Seto, are you alright?"_ She held out her hand to him and added,_ "Here, let me help you." _My sister shot me a 'told you so' look._

_We heard him snap at her that he could look after himself, but nonetheless he accepted her hand and she hauled him to his feet. I raised my eyebrows at that and glanced at Mokuba and Mike – who both started grinning at me in a knowing fashion - the three of us have a bet that relies on our respective older siblings and I shoot them both a look to tell them that the exchange below was nowhere near a contribution factor to that bet. Alyssa and Sam too, watched with slight amusement, but that soon changed to horror as the black sludge that was Anubis began oozing and reforming into a large dog-like creature._

_He laughed and asked how well we would play this game when the monsters were real. I shouted that he really should get with the times – Izzy had already faced real monsters a dozen times before and there was even that one time when we were all monsters too – that was a little creepy, but still the point still stood. Sam looked taken aback for a moment and asked if that was real – for she had thought that Alyssa had been making it up._

_Apparently Anubis didn't like my interruption and he snarled at us while simultaneously scattering the contents of both Kaiba and Izzy's decks adding that there was nothing in their decks that could save them now. My sister tried her luck summoning her ever faithful Strike Ninja and Rabid Horsemen, but Anubis snorted at her and swatted her monsters aside as though they were flies._

_And to make matters worse, the roof above us was beginning to crumble. Izzy screamed at us to get of there and Pegasus added his agreement – pointing to where the Toon Dark Magician Girl and the Toon Blue Eyes White Dragon were holding up a section of the roof._

_Alyssa pushed Mike and me towards the elevator door. Mokuba hesitated only briefly, glancing at his older brother who nodded, before he too followed us with Sam and Pegasus bringing up the rear. _

_We had been standing outside, just waiting for it to be over when Anubis exploded out of the Dome and quite literally jumped down the roads away from us. We understandable highly alarmed; I think Alyssa put it best when she said: "_This is what's technically known as a bit of a bugger_."_

_Pegasus agreed and ordered his man to start the engine of his helicopter and we all climbed in – waiting for Izzy and Seto to appear which they did moments later._

_We knew we were flying into a giant shadow game – we all knew as we watched the black clouds spread beyond our line of vision. Pegasus confirmed it - saying that this storm was spreading all over Great Britain and in less than hours we would wave goodbye to Western Europe and the Eastern Seaboard of America, and in just a few hours from now, the entire world was going to be covered in shadows, and we were the only ones who had any way of stopping it - so we had little pressure on us; or anything._

_Anubis was waiting for us - watching our small helicopter from a distance and as we neared him, he seemed to roar, creating a billowing black smoke that rolled towards us. We watched in muted horror as the smoke dropped, leaving behind hundreds, maybe even thousands of monsters and one in particular was aiming for us in the helicopter. We heard Croquet shouting in the cockpit that there was no way that there was no way that we would be able to avoid a collision. Pegasus bellowed over the sounds of the helicopter to turn around and run._

_Croquet must have managed to break every rule in the flying manual as he swung the helicopter around so much that we were effectively flying on our side in mid-air, but even Croquet's spectacular flying skills couldn't stop Grey Wing, the Dragon from hitting us._

_The force of the impact shook the helicopter throwing those of us in the back about and wrenching Croquet from the now useless controls as we spun faster and faster- colours and shapes, trees and buildings, blurring before sharpening into focus as the ground came rushing up beneath us._

_Eventually, I heard Izzy scream that we were going to hit the local petrol station, and she was right. If we hit it, the explosion would take out not only the helicopter, but most of the surroundings too. _

_This was a residential area and although storm warnings had been issued, and that monsters had been spotted in the sky, and most of the cars on the road were police cars trying to stop the panic and get people to return to their homes – Izzy and Mike's father was probably with them._

_Alyssa's voice crackled over the inter-chopper radio from her position in the cockpit – there had not been enough room for her in the back with us so she had hopped in the front with Croquet - she shouted that the angle of depression equalled the angle of elevation and that judging by the angle that Grey Wing had hit us at, we were not going to hit the petrol station. Alyssa had always said that she would find a use for all those maths lessons studying trigonometry and now she had._

_It still didn't help us very much because we were still going to hit the ground – well actually we skimmed over the top of the petrol station and knocking down the old tree that had stood for years in the local area, before crashing diagonally into the ground._

_I opened my eyes to find that I was still alive – and without major injuries, or even minor one come to think about it – I was a little shaken, but still very much alive. I groaned as I released the buckle keeping me in place and staggered to my feet._

_Izzy was already on her own feet, checking that both Pegasus and Sam who had sat in the wrong places were not dead, but merely unconscious. She ordered us younger ones, Mike, Mokuba and myself to get outside while she and Kaiba got the two unconscious people on the stretch of green lawn beside the helicopter that was not covered in debris. _

_We stood back for a moment before we realised that Croquet and Alyssa were still in the cockpit. Izzy raced back in to get them out with Kaiba following her. I tried to follow, but Mokuba held me back, telling me that I would probably get in the way. Grudgingly I knew he was right as Kaiba hauled the badly bleeding Croquet out of the helicopter and placed him on the ground beside Sam and Pegasus._

_A few moments later, Izzy emerged with my sister who immediately pulled off her glasses and threw them aside. I heard her say something about the fact that her glasses were now useless – scratched beyond repair, but then she bent her head and something quietly to Izzy that only she heard. Izzy nodded gravely and then, they both headed towards us. We had to move now if we wanted to stop Anubis._

_So we left the crash site, we ran along the deserted, life-less roads – knowing that the hope of the world was resting on our shoulders as we ran towards the eye of the storm - the beginning and end of it all._

_We got as far as one of the sets of traffic lights before something started bubbling and oozing on to the pavement as two shapes formed themselves into men and dragged themselves out of the black sludge._

_I heard Izzy gasp – she had recognised them, I know I did - these were two of the six men who had been in search of Anubis' tomb at the same time that the Millennium Puzzle had come to Izzy almost two years ago. They had not been seen since and it had been widely believed that the men had died in that terrible place, but at that precise moment it was not important because the taller of the ex-men put his hand and lift a finger and then another, quite deliberately as two duel disks materialised on both his arm and on his partners. I guessed the disciples of Anubis wanted to play a little game._

_We watched as Kaiba strode forwards, accepting the challenge - from behind me, I heard the Pharaoh calling Kaiba back, telling him that it was dangerous and that we still did not exactly what it was that we were dealing with, but Kaiba ignored him._

_The shadowy man lowered one finger but he wanted two people to play the game. It was to be a tag-team duel and Seto knew it – he threw a card at the Pharaoh who caught it without a conscious thought, before asking Mokuba to join him._

_Again the Pharaoh protested – shouting that it was a Shadow Game and that Kaiba should not be taking Mokuba in there, but then Mokuba didn't listen either – he waved confidently at us, but his smile faltered as both Kaiba brothers were lost from view._

_Izzy – for she had switched with the Pharaoh again - said miserably that neither of them would be able to survive a Shadow Game. I wasn't too sure about that – there have been plenty of things that Kaiba had survived that not many other people would have done and Mokuba was exactly the same, so I thought that they would be all right._

_Izzy came to this conclusion to as she flickered her eyes over the card that Kaiba had thrown at her – it was the Blue Eyes Shining Dragon, before storing it carefully in her blazer pocket. _

_Mike had already been home this evening and had time to change, but the rest of us were still wearing our uniforms and I was still wearing my PE kit._

_We headed off again down the road, getting quite a good distance before once again the bubbling and oozing sound began ringing in our ears, which signalled the arrival of two more servants of Anubis looking for two more individuals to do battle with. Mike and I shared a glance and made a silent decision. I told our respective sisters to beat it and get out of here and go after Anubis – there were four of us and these two ex-men only wanted two._

_Neither of them were too happy about it, but they had little choice in the matter – we had made up our mind and that we wanted to do this. We wanted to help. They grudgingly accepted it and stepped away from the traffic lights. In the single instant before Mike and I were swallowed by the shadows, I thought I saw Alyssa move her lips in a silent prayer, but then it was gone replaced by the darkness. _

_I turned to face our opponents – coming to the sickening realisation that neither of us had a duel disk – sure we both had decks; all of us had taken to bringing a deck with us when we went anywhere after Battle City and those of us who had disks had taken the habit of bring them to school – so that's Alyssa, Simon, Seto and Izzy. _

_And speaking of Simon, I wondered if the boy was all right – he had not been at school that day. I hoped he was okay, but this was not the time to dwell on anything else as two duel disks appeared on our arms – I could already feel the shadows already working on my mind and the game hadn't even begun yet._

_We didn't do too badly –game wise; our opponents were using fire and water decks and we had more life points than they had – Mike was using Solemn Wishes to repair the damage to his life points, but still as the duel went on, it became harder to breathe – we were using our own energy in this game. Izzy and the Pharaoh had not been lying when they said that these Shadow Games were deadly. We could feel the shadows bearing down on us from all sides, invading all parts of our minds, slowly suffocating us…_

_I had to shake my head again – reminding myself that it was that sort of thoughts that would distract us from the duel and as it happened, our opponents were about to unleash something practically nasty._

_Fire used his three monsters to summon his new monster – only the Gods needed three monsters as tribute, unless of course this monster had a dangerous effect that was triggered with an extra tribute, which of course it did – leaving a monster with 4000 ATTACK POINTS in it's place._

_Which leads me to the second problem that we had - Mike was proving to be rather hyperactive for the situation we were in. From what I've been told, if your life points hit zero in a shadow game you die and so by my logic if exceeded 8000 life point as Mike's had just done, then it resulted in the person going hyper, but the upshot of this was that I missed my turn – while I had been trying to work out Mike I'd missed my go and Water was already beginning his turn – this time using four tributes instead of three and so now we were now facing two monsters – one with 4000 ATTACK and another with 8000 ATTACK._

_We were in serious trouble and Mike's constant giggling – having already graduated from hyper to slightly drunk at the end of Water's turn – was not helping at all._

_I'm afraid that I slapped him – several times in fact, to get him to wake up, and it wasn't until he had seen the powerful monsters before us that he truly sobered up; then Mike started yelling at me for letting this happen and I hit him again. We were both being extremely irritable with the other and that was not going to be the way to get out of this Shadow Game._

_Mike drew, but as he did the 'roof' of the doomed Shadow Game swirled and went white. We stared at it as it prepared to show us something._

_We watched as first we were shown an aerial view of the Kaiba's brothers' duel – their remaining opponent had control of Kaiba's Blue Eyes and was gearing up to attack the younger boy who had a single magic card on the field. I let out an involuntary gasp as Mokuba was consumed by the power of the Blue Eye._

_The white smoke swirled once more, but revealed a different scene. This time it was Alyssa and some white-haired dude that I had never seen before in mid-duel. I watched my sister's face as the guy slumped down, his head banging against the traffic lights as he fell._

_The shadows swirled back over and turned black. It was hopeless; we were all losing – Mokuba, that guy, whoever he was, with my sister, and who knew where Izzy had gotten to herself to, and we were not far behind them all._

_It was at this point that Mike noted that all the duels were by traffic light. I jerked my head – he was right, and it gave me an idea. I told him to attack the traffic light, and seeing as he had nothing better to do, Mike ordered his Unshaven Angler to attack the traffic lights._

_They exploded in sparks of electricity and smoke. The oppressive shadows that had been drawing itself around our minds faded and we blinked, back on the streets, but it was not time to celebrate any victory yet – we had to press on and regroup with the others – or at least those who had survived. _

_We ran along the deserted roads in search of any of the others, but found nothing. I stopped dead – something was wrong and I knew it – Alyssa wouldn't give up; she would die on me, and I told Mike this as we hurried up the roads to where another small storm was circling._

_As we approached it, the Shadow Dome swirled away, revealing my sister, surrounded by_ _three bodies, but then her knees gave way and she joined them – the Ring tinkling as it hit the floor. The three other bodies disappeared – the two servants dissolving back into the black sludge while the third, the odd white haired man just faded away without the shadows to support his existence._

_Mike stood by as I tried to wake my sister. She wasn't going to die on me yet, and indeed she opened her eyes and sat up again. I jumped on her; hugging her fiercely and accidentally slamming her head back down on the ground. She sat back up, groggily rising to her feet looking toward the old derelict factory much further along the roads and wondered if Izzy had figure it out after all._

_I asked my sister who the white-haired dude that she had been duelling with earlier and who had disappeared with the Shadows. Alyssa waved her hand as we headed back up the road and said that that was Bakura. I blinked – Bakura, as in Spirit of the Millennium Ring, Bakura - what the heck was she doing duelling with him of all people._

_Alyssa went on to explain that both she and Izzy had carried on towards Anubis, but the monstrosity had seen them and he had snarled – disappearing from view._

_It was then that she felt it, the pain, it had hurt so much - it was almost like when we were being sucked into the puzzle earlier, but it worse, only it was more like it was in reverse, and then it had hit Izzy too, but it finished almost as quickly as it had begun._

_They had stood back up, but were acutely aware of the fact that there was someone was now standing behind them. The two girls had turned around find Bakura and the Pharaoh standing before them - both surprisingly solid._

_Apparently, Anubis was strong enough to not only make monsters on the cards real, but also to give the two spirit of the Millennium Puzzle and Ring flesh and blood too – they were mortal like us._

_Alyssa said she used this to her advantage, taking full opportunity of the chance to beat up Bakura, which was fun for a moment or two before the Pharaoh had reminded her that there was still a world that needed to be saved. She'd backed off of course, letting the ex-tomb robber take his guard down, and then almost instantaneously the pair of them had started to bicker again for several moments, before the Pharaoh had rounded on both of them and had told them to shut up._

_The argument shifted from my sister and Bakura to the Pharaoh and Bakura; it probably would have resulted in an all out fight if she and Izzy had not decided to intervene, restraining their respective darker halves from slaughtering the other. _

_Izzy had hissed something in the Pharaoh's ear and he'd backed down, and then she had repeated it louder so that Bakura and Alyssa heard it to. They no longer had any shadow magic, so technically, banishing the other to the Shadow Realm was out of the question._

_With that Alyssa and Izzy had started back up the street they had been running along, before they had been interrupted by Anubis' little magic trick and were followed a moment or two later by the two gentlemen who had caught up with them as the bubbling oozing slime which signalled the arrival of the last two disciples of Anubis. She and Bakura had opted to stay behind this time, while Izzy and the Pharaoh continued after Anubis._

_Well, Mike had noted dryly, that at least explained where Izzy had gotten herself to, the only problem was that we needed to get there as well._

_This problem was soon rectified by the arrival of a small four-seater car, speeding towards us on the road with all the windows rolled down. It screeched up to us, the driver evidently doing his or her best to floor the break; the car swerved and stopped next to us._

_We stood in silence for a moment, before Mokuba stuck his head out and asked if we wanted a lift. I almost laughed as he opened the door and slide over to where Sam was sitting - so he had survived that attack after all. I asked him where they had gotten the car after we had managed to fit a fourth person, Mike, into the rather cramped backseat of the car – it was that or he sat on the handbrake. Mokuba shifted uncomfortably as he admitted it was_ borrowed.

_I took that to mean that it was stolen. Apparently as well as being able to drive at sixteen in a country where that is illegal, Seto Kaiba can also hotwire a car. My sister shrugged as she put it her seat belt in the front and pointed out that with the way the world was at the moment – monsters attacking everywhere; buildings being destroyed and people being injured and even killed – it mattered little whether the car was stolen or not. _

_I asked Sam what had happened to her while Alyssa and Seto were arguing in the front about where Izzy was – she told me that she had woken up by the helicopter and had only just managed to get away before the ambulances had arrived. She had taken a wild guess in the direction that the rest of us had come and had headed in that direction – when she eventually came across a shattering shadow dome and both Kaiba brothers. She and Mokuba had barely time to greet each other before they followed Kaiba who was already leaving._

_And speaking of Kaiba, at that moment he seemed to be having problems of his own. Alyssa had been trying to use the Millennium Ring to locate where Izzy had gotten herself to, but it had backfired on her yet again as it tried to drag Alyssa completely over the top of Seto and out of his window. He was having difficulties trying to shove my sister back in her seat._

_Eventually, the Spirit of the Ring took matters into his own hands, pulling the ring under his control and spinning the steering wheel around so that we were facing the factory. Kaiba shouted something about not being anything, but he was ignored as the Bakura stamped down harder on his foot, making him press down harder on the accelerator._

_I'm pretty sure we were all screaming as the car blasted through a rusted fence of the factory that Alyssa had pointed out earlier and into the factory itself, through several walls and their respective rooms at such a speed that the car was thrown half-way up before flipping and landing upside down, spinning like a top on it's back on a metal walkway overlooking a large room which held the large monster and two individuals we were looking for._

_As we scrambled out from the car to hear Izzy shout that there was no way on earth that Alyssa was dead. Anubis told her to believe what she liked because Izzy and the Pharaoh would soon join her._

_Alyssa didn't take to kindly to being assumed to be dead, shouted down:_ "Well actually, I'm right up here along with Cassie, Mike, Sam, Seto and Mokuba. What are you going to do about it Anubis?"

_Izzy was delighted to see us; the Pharaoh too, he asked about Bakura; Alyssa tapped the Rind around her neck, saying cheerily that he was back where he belonged. Apparently, he had sacrificed himself so that Alyssa could go on to win their duel._

_However, Izzy and the Pharaoh should have been more concerned with the large fireball that Anubis was preparing to throw at them – Sam shouted a warning to them and they leapt, not entirely elegantly to the side. There was no telling how many times we watched the pair of them dodge, roll and in all in all narrowly escape the volley of fireballs as Anubis steadily got more and more annoyed with them._

_It was weird seeing the Pharaoh like that – I mean we've all seen the stone tablet before, and so we knew it was him, but it was so strange actually seeing him before us now as he and Izzy crashed painfully to the floor again. He would be the first to his feet, hauling Izzy up to - both clearly trying to figure out a plan while not being killed in the process._

_We did our best to figure out a way that we could help – even Kaiba who even shouted down his own version of encouragement and of course, Sam promptly yelled him at for being mean._

_At Sam's outburst, my sister seemed to jerk herself out of a though pattern and she hurled herself toward a metal staircase. She shouted that she needed something from the school library. _

_We turned our attention to the floor below us to where Izzy and the Pharaoh were struggling to their feet after finally being hit by a fireball – still determined to fight on. We watched as Anubis go from irritated to just plain angry._

_Somehow he knew that physical attack alone was not going to be enough for them, particularly Izzy to give up and so he began the mental barrage – asking her what she thought she was fighting for. What exactly she believed herself to be fighting for._

_Izzy responded sharply:_ "The world, and if I'm not fighting for that, then I'm fighting for him because I'm glad to help in any way I can. We've had good times in this – all of us! "_ For the briefest of moment, the Pharaoh slipped his hand into Izzy's and squeezed it, giving her a smile that we've never seen him use, before Anubis interrupted, snorting as he asked her:_

"Fighting for the Pharaoh are you? You have already died once by his hand, do you really intent to make it a second time." _Izzy had blinked at that and so to did the Pharaoh who had no clue as to what Anubis was talking about, letting go of her hand and demanded an explanation of the monstrosity's words, which of course Anubis did not oblige him with, continuing, "_And as for the 'good times', I'm sure that there is a lot more bad times, why don't you try and remember them…"

_He had set out to break her, and break her he did – we found out later that he had forced Izzy to relive every bad moment of her life. We couldn't see which memories Izzy was being forced to see, but it was affecting her – she was on her knees and she was crying, not moving, and despite the Pharaoh's best efforts she didn't come back until Anubis was assured that she had seen everything that he wanted her to see._

_When she did come back to us, and Izzy finally moved crying a little, it was to ask what was the point in all this. We tried to convince her that there was a point because we saved lives – she saved them, but she wouldn't listen. We tried to point out the times that she'd been there for us, but it didn't matter because Izzy argued that every time we got out of one problem we walked straight into another._

_At some point, Alyssa arrived back clutching an old library book, one particular page marked by some photos that she had collected before going to the museum earlier this afternoon. Kaiba told her what had happened and that Izzy had given up the will to fight and Mokuba's comments about the hero becoming a pacifist wasn't helping at all._

_Below us, the Pharaoh was doing his best to snap her out the Anubis induced mind-sludge - we couldn't hear what he said to her, but we did heard her hysterical response: _"But that's just it, Yami, don't you get it, they're all so nice to me, and they end up getting hurt anyway, and then we just end up doingit all over again! I can't… I'm sorry… I just can't do this anymore!"

_It was at this point that Anubis began unleashing the fireballs once more, and since they had not moved to a safer place, both they were still easy targets. The Pharaoh still hoping that he could get through to her stood in front of her, defending her from the attacks, he was the only thing that was stopping the fireball from reaching Izzy and in this mood; there was no denying that a direct attack would probably kill her and we all knew that he would defend her until she snapped out of it or he died._

_Alyssa snapped, throwing the book that she had gone to such lengths to fetch at Izzy. It hit her head, crashing to the floor, cascading the photos everywhere. My sister shouted that she knew that Izzy was scared – heck we all were – the whole human race was scared right now. She said that she couldn't deny that we hadn't been caught in the crossfire, showing her Battle City scar as proof of that but she also said that that didn't matter because we'd come out each time alright. Because we had to keep doing it – she had to keep going because we would continue getting out until the world stopped being so screwy._

_There was an awful silence for a moment – if Alyssa's words hadn't got through to her, then the Pharaoh may have been force to leave her to try and save the rest of the world, but as it happened Alyssa's advice had been taken to heart, and Izzy scooped up the book and yelled:_ "Just exactly how is this supposed to help?" _Alyssa shouted down the page number and Izzy quickly found the page in The Lost and Found Legends and began reading it – despite that Anubis was trying to blast her into pieces again. _

_While she did that, Alyssa explained to the rest of us what it was – she said that the prophecy at the museum hadn't predicted anything, it only revealed itself to be a prophecy and that bad stuff would happen if we didn't win, but maybe it point to another prophecy that might help now._

_She remembered reading one of the legends in this book and for some reason it had stuck with her, and she had a feeling that it might be able to help against Anubis._

_It was a tale of a great war between Magicians and Dragons, which went on for centuries – until eventually the cause for starting had been lost and it would an endless, but for a young apprentice Magician who looked into the future to see what the Dragons would do, but saw a greater and more powerful evil coming and the Magicians alone would not be able to have stopped it._

_He had watched as they fell to the legions of the evil creature, and then as the same army slaughtered the Dragons to – the rest of the world destroyed. No one had believe him when he told them about what he had seen - but he had known what he had seen and tried for the rest of his life to find a solution. _

_It evaded him until the moment before he died. Again, he saw the world destroyed, but this time it was different, it continued and the world was rebuilt, flourishing and becoming the place it should be. He could only hope that when the creature returned that people would have more chance, before he saw nothing else._

_Below Izzy dropped the book, coming to the end of the story, dodging out of the way of Anubis' latest fireball. She screamed up that it was a good story, but how was it supposed to help them._

_That was the problem – it had only been a fleeting feeling, Alyssa didn't know have any great knowledge of it than that, and she was about to say this, but Kaiba interrupted her, shouting that it was quite obvious – neither side in the story had been able to defeat the evil creature on their own – as the Blue Eyes Shining Dragon had not worked to destroy Anubis._

_There was a pause before Izzy asked about the last two lines of the prophecy:_ "Unless blinded by event predetermined thus light and shadows both be killed._" She wanted to know if there anything useful wrapped up in that._

_We racked our brains – the Pharaoh was flagging badly from where he was doing a very good job of both distracting and annoying Anubis by dodging the new wave of fireballs. We did not have long. We were all thinking as laterally and metaphorically as we could but we were all drawing blanks, but trust Kaiba to be thinking literally:_

"Light and Shadows is another way of saying Light and Dark – that story, _however _unrealistic it maybe, is just like the game – light and dark monsters fighting each other, the dragons in the story couldn't win alone, but if they had joined forces with the magicians…"

_He trailed off as Izzy asked the Pharaoh if that would work, but before he was able to respond, Anubis had decided that he'd had enough of us, throwing a fireball, ten times the size of the ones spat at the Pharaoh and Izzy at us. We scurried for the metal staircase, only just making it in time before it impacted, blowing a large hole in the wall._

_Amazingly, we escaped with no addition injures – only a momentary deafness from the explosion before we headed back into the main room, just in time to hear the Pharaoh say: _"There are other forces just as great, if not greater than shadow magic, and our friends sacrifices will assure that not only will we summon a brand new monster, but it will defeat you!"

_Alyssa frowned as we all walked back in through the main doors to the room, yelling in frustration:_ "Why do you all keep _assuming_ that I'm dead?!"

_Izzy just started at us with an open mouth, mumbling that we were blasted through a second storey so how on earth had we survived. Mike waved it away by saying that he would explain later, pointing both his sister and the Pharaoh's attention back to Anubis who was growing both in anger and in size- he seemed to be only a hairs-breadth from the shadowy sky. I added that we best be summoning this monster pretty sharpish too._

_The Pharaoh looked at us all and swallowed hard – then I remembered what Alyssa had said earlier, he had no magic left to summon and now we were expecting him to summon this powerful creature, whatever it was._

_Izzy's voice cut through my own thought as she pressed the Blue Eyes Shining Dragon card that Kaiba had thrown to her earlier, into the Pharaoh's hand, as she told him:_ "Don't worry Yami - we'll help you."

_The rest of us added our agreement._

"Of course we will! However we can!"

"Same as ever."

"Behind ya all the way!"

"With all of us, there's no way that we can lose so I don't know why you're all worrying."

"We've been through tougher times than this and come out okay – together we'll _all _be fine!"

"Just get on with it already before he kills us!" _No prizes for guessing which of us said that one, but I think I also heard Izzy add at the end, very quietly:_ "I'm sorry that I doubted you."

_He smiled slightly, before he nodded to us all and lifted the Blue Eyes Shining Dragon and the Sorcerer of Dark Magic cards into the air. They started glowing – it was quite spectacular to see the two monsters appear in the air._

_The light became unbearable, consuming both creatures in an explosion of whiteness. We were brought back to the present by a triumphant cry and then the smoke cleared and we were able to see the large silvery dragon hanging where the two creatures had once been._

_Anubis wasn't at all happy about it - screaming protestations that it couldn't happen and that he was immortal, firing stronger and stronger fireballs at the dragon, but it was no use; it was the end, and the Pharaoh told him that as the Dragon of Fate started glowing with insane power._

_We decided to beat a hasty retreat from the factory, pausing momentarily to collect the book and the photos as Anubis shattered the roof, rising towards the dark sky and the silvery dragon hanging in the air moved ever closer to the dark monstrosity and then suddenly, the world seemed to exploded in light._

_When my vision returned I could see that the Pharaoh, who had returned to the Puzzle, the Dragon, Anubis and were all gone– replaced by entirely turquoise blue skies with not a cloud or monster in sight. We stood there for a few moments, before Kaiba left with Mokuba. We watched them deciding to find something chocolaty and gooey to eat, and as Mike pointed out to, some first aid wouldn't be a bad idea, either._

_And so all in all, we waked away from collapsing buildings, fought with flaming mummies, survived a helicopter crash, several shadow games, monster attacks, a car crash, fiery balls of death and we saved the word – not bad for an afternoon's work!_

* * *

She sat in front of the tablet, chewing her pencil absently in her mouth while she fingered the newly re-acquired photos in her hand. Her drawing pad was beside her, but was it was blank as her mind kept wandering, never settling, always moving, and travelling back to her memories of that incident a few weeks ago with Anubis and the Pyramid of Light and how close they'd come to not coming out alive.

Cassie screamed slightly, trying to dislodge her depressing thoughts and pulling her pencil from her mouth. She was supposed to be up from the Art Department on a trip to the museum, she was supposed to be having fun; she did not want to be dwelling on the past few weeks – and yet as always of all the artefacts in the museum it was the stone tablet that she was drawn to.

Why the heck was she thinking these dreary thoughts anyway? They had made it out alive – the human race had survived, they had walked away from it, so what was the problem?

She sighed as she stared at the photos again. Alyssa had asked her to pick up the replacement photos while she was here, so she'd popped in during the lunch break – the others, the first set of these photos had been scorched beyond recognition by the fireballs at the warehouse after they had been thrown at Izzy.

Cassie smiled as she recognised some of the photos – it was a pretty fair mix, it was three sets of film that had been developed. There were photos from the various school trips that they had been on and the trip to Tokyo last Easter. There were a fair number from the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City Tournaments too. Alyssa had been right – they had had good times in all those crazy adventures.

She paused as she stared at one of the photos, the one that Duke had taken of the five of them just before they had flown back to England from Tokyo – they still hadn't told Simon. Cassie shook her head. He kept asking if they knew what had really happened. He knew that that the others had done something that day while he had been wrapped up in bed with a cold and a hot water bottle – they just hadn't got around to telling him yet, because they simply hadn't known how he would have reacted. Didn't know whether or not he'd believe them. She stopped, and sighed, talking more to herself, "But it's affected her far worse than we thought…"

_"Affected who?"_ Cassie scrambled to her feet to see a young woman, a few years older than herself, maybe even Alyssa's age standing behind her – she had not released that someone had come into the room – this was one of the quieter exhibits - to the best of her knowledge the only regular visitors to this place where herself and her friends and for Izzy especially while finished the older ones finished their GCSEs examinations. The girl smiled slightly as she moved forwards, "I know I shouldn't ask; it's not my place, but you looked as though you needed to talk to someone.""Oh," Cassie shifted uncomfortably, feeling surprisingly a little guilty about lying to this stranger, muttering, "It's just a friend – I think the monster attacks last month just affected her worse than we though it did."

That wasn't a lie as such – in fact it had more truth to it. She had overheard her mother on the phone to Izzy's mom and Mike had confirmed it to, but every night since the ordeal with Anubis, Izzy had been screaming and sobbing in her sleep, and there was nothing that he or their parents could do to help her – not without admitting what really happen. She mumbled under her breath, "So he really did break her…"

"Do you think they were real then?" The older girl asked suddenly, sitting beside her, snapping Cassie from her thoughts, "The monsters – I always thought they were just hologram, but they felt so real – like they were living, breathing creatures. It's hard to believe that holograms could do all that damage." She paused catching sight of the younger girl's arm, "You were injured weren't you?"

Cassie nodded slightly, raising her left arm to show the other girl the cuts and burns that were still healing and would take a while to do so properly. The other girl winced as Cassie pulled her sleeve down, muttering, "I heard this place was the centre of the storm – that it began and ended here. If those Seven Shadows hadn't been here, I think the human race would have disappeared." She paused and added quietly, _"I really did think that we were going to die…"_

Cassie turned her face away, not because she didn't have an answer, but because she couldn't answer – they had found out later that there had been a small camera crew that had taken a picture through the smoke and dust after the factory – none of them were identifiable, but the picture of the 'Seven Shadows' that the older girl spoke of who had done something saved the world had been splashed across the world under headlines of every language, was them, and the world would never know it.

They were the only ones who knew what happen that Thursday evening in April. They were still being asked by the police to turn themselves in, but they weren't going to do that, so instead Cassie said eventually, "Me too."

The girls sat in silence for a few moments, each lost in their own thoughts before the other girl offered:

"It makes you think doesn't it? All those things we take for granted… It makes you realise how important your friends are…"

Cassie shifted slightly, turning to look at the girl, placing the photos down. "We have a friend – some stuff happened and he wasn't there, but we haven't told him about it yet. We want to, but I don't know if he'll understand."

The dark brown haired girl smiled slightly, "Just tell him – if he's your friend then he'll understand."

Cassie sat for a moment, before she broke into a smile – the girl was right: "Thanks."

The girl smiled too, "No problem… hey, so you know Izzy Corbey then?" She tapped the photos that Cassie had put down on the seat. The younger girl nodded, and she continued, "I have a friend, Jonouchi, who would probably kill to meet her," she chuckled slightly, "I think it might have been the one of the reasons for coming on this trip – Yugi's grandpa met her brother in Battle City while we were out and then Ryo came back in September saying that he had almost met her too. He spoke to her friend instead."

"That was my sister, Alyssa, she told me about that – she said she nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw him, never said why though," Cassie tilted her head, before she too smiled, "And yeah, I think I can remember Mike saying something about that in Battle City too while we were looking for Izzy – the game store owner, Mr Moto? Yes?"

The other girl nodded, "Jonouchi was annoyed that he missed it and was even more annoyed when he Ryo told him in September that the mime that jumped on him had gone after the King of Games…"

Cassie snorted and the other girl joined in laughing: "This museum got broken into, didn't it just before the monster attacks? Something got stolen – do you know if they got it back. I wanted to see them."

The shorter girl shook her head, "No, I think they might have given them up for lost. They can't find them." Cassie sighed, "You didn't miss much anyway…"

"Still, it would have been nice to see them," the girl glanced at her watch as she stood up, "Well, I guess I had better go, I did said that I'd meet my friends at the entrance at two thirty and it's two forty…" She started walking away, and she did so, Cassie came to a sudden realisation.

"Hey," she call after the older girl who turned around to face Cassie, "I'm sorry, but I never asked your name?"

"I'm Anzu Mazaki and you are?"

"Cassie Trent – it's been nice to meet you, Anzu."

Anzu smiled at her, and waved, "You to Cassie- take care."

* * *

**A/N: 1. It really is llegeal to drive on the roads in England at sixteen**

**2. GCSEs are the English examinations taken at 16**

**Now, that probably wasn't what you expected now was it? Waffles4eva wrote me a version of this and I decided it would be the way that it would happen in Strangers Like Me and she very kindly allowed me do to so.**

**As always, take a pot guess at which character is going to come up next, and also see if you can guess some of the pairings too? (one person is banned from answering this one, yes, you know who you are) You might get a virtual cookie if you're right.**

**Til next time, have fun and review.**


	5. Faith

**A/N:** **Welcome back, and it's off to America for the Doma Saga and so I without further ado, I will now hand over to Simon.**

**Disclaimer – I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or the other little anime cameos. I only own my own characters.**

Chapter Four - Faith

_Life is unfair – I think I've come to that conclusion many times in the last two years, ever since the Millennium Items came into our lives. Life is extremely unfair to us - it feels so long ago that everything was only just a game, and not something in which we were always fighting for ourselves, for our lives and everyone else in the world._

_I have to admit I missed out on the last one – I had the flu and so when Izzy and the others were fighting against this Anubis character last April, I was wrapped up in blankets fighting an infection, listening to the news announcements on the radio with my parents, hoping and praying that the others were all right. They'd made it out alive, pretty much and when they did eventually get around to telling me, Cassie said that they'd even got to meet the Pharaoh properly to – this Anubis apparently had been strong enough to make the Pharaoh mortal and solid until they defeated him. Alyssa also added that he really does actually look like he does in that stone tablet at the museum. I noticed that Izzy smiled slightly at that before her phone rang. On seeing whom the caller ID was, she then excused herself and went outside to answer it._

_As soon as she had gone, the others exchanged concerned looks with each other and eventually, Mike admitted that there was something else that they had not quite told me – that before they had the chance to destroy Anubis, the monstrosity had played havoc with Izzy's mind, forcing her to remember every bad moment of her life to make her surrender. He told me that afterwards as they had left the factory that April evening, she'd insisted that she was fine, but that was far from the truth – it wasn't until later that night, did he finally realise the real extent of the damage that Anubis had done to his older sister. Mike said that it had been heart wrenching to see her screaming and sobbing each and every night, watching something that only she could see. He added that it had hurt their parents immensely to know that they couldn't do anything to help her. _

_Mike continued by adding that there had been a slight in the air hovering beside Izzy as she tossed and turned, screaming and crying - their parents had never noticed it, but he had and known almost instantly that it was the Pharaoh – he was, after all, the only one with a direct link to Izzy's subconscious, and therefore the only one who could pull her out of any mind sludge that Anubis had inflicted on her. Finally, one night Mike said that he could have sworn that for a moment he thought the Pharaoh turned towards him, as though somehow asking him silently to leave Izzy to him – promising the younger boy that she would be alright. Mike then had to usher his worried parents from the room, leaving the Pharaoh to help his sister – it was that night that was the first night since Anubis that Izzy had slept undisturbed. We later found out that she had spent the night sleeping in the Puzzle, where the Pharaoh could keep a _much_ closer eye on her._

_It was at this point that Izzy returned from her phone call, explaining that the call had been from Seto Kaiba and that he wanted a favour from her. To our credit, we did try and find out what this favour was, but Izzy kept silent, refusing to answer any of our questions. _

_Anyway, it didn't really matter because it didn't taken long for us to find out what it was for ourselves – you see after the end of the final GCSE exams, every year our school holds a Prom for the leaving students and this year was our turn – but Kaiba skipped out on it and even more, importantly Izzy skipped out on it as well. Alyssa and I had arrived expecting both of them to show up at any moment, but no, as the evening progressed, the chances of them showing diminished by the minute. Eventually, we both gave up and called Izzy to find out where the heck she was. We were startled to say the least when it was not Izzy who answered her phone, but Kaiba._

_I grabbed the phone from Alyssa and started demanding where on earth he was; why he had Izzy's phone, and more to the point, where was Izzy if he had her mobile? _

_I heard him snorting on the other end, before he said they were only in America and the way he said it to – made it seem as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I wanted to reach down the phone and strangle him for that, but there was a fumbling sound over the phone and Izzy came on. She confirmed that she was with Seto and that they were indeed in America for this business party. It turns out that that favour that he asked of her was to be his escort for this thing, so that's where they were heading right now. I had to repeat what she had just said to clear it in my own head._

_Izzy said cheerily that she'd see us soon and then she ended the call. I stared blankly at Alyssa, who took her phone back, looking just as surprised as I thought I did –both coming to the same conclusion that Izzy and Kaiba were out somewhere on a date - together._

_We were standing next to Ophelia, one of the girls that had made our lives miserable a couple of year back, although admittedly whatever the Pharaoh did to the other one, Máirín back before we even knew he existed, before Duelist Kingdom when all this crazy stuff didn't happen to us, meant that the two of them had been much quieter – but anyway Ophelia's own phone rang and she disappeared to answer it – coming back moments later glaring stonily into the distance as though she had just heard something she wished she hadn't._

_Izzy and Kaiba flew back in his Blue Eyes White Jet the day after Prom, and Alyssa and I were waiting for her. Izzy smiled and waved at us, before she leant forwards to say something to Kaiba before hopping out to join us. We waited until Kaiba was out of earshot, before letting the girl have it – demanding to know exactly what she thought she was doing going on a date with Kaiba, of all people. Izzy just raised her eyebrows at us and said that it wasn't a date. It was just a 'business dinner' held by one of the companies that Kaiba Corporation did business with on a regular basis that had come up suddenly and Seto couldn't turn the invitation but it was very insistent that he brought an escort – which was where Izzy had come in._

_She mentioned that she'd ended up talking with this blond idiot who kept muttering something about commoner romances before his dark-haired friend who was wearing glasses directed him away, or rather she guessed he was the other boy's friend by the way that he dragged the blond boy away by his ear, apologising on the other boy's behalf – she said that Seto had later informed her that the blond one was Tamaki Suoh and that his friend was Kyouya Ootori._

_Anyway, a couple of days later, we caught Izzy heading back up to the museum to begin finding the Pharaoh's memories and the four of us - that is to say Alyssa, Cassie, Mike and myself, tagged along to watch. On reflection, it was a good thing that we did – the Pharaoh held the God Cards up to the stone tablet and everything went crazy – yet again. He shouted out in pain, clutching the arm that had been holding the cards, he said that something was draining them and that, it turns out, was only the least of our new problems._

_There were monsters floating in the sky – they weren't attacking or anything, but as we left the museum wee could hear people panicking, shouting and screaming that it was happening all over again._

_Izzy tried calling Kaiba to find out what he knew about these monsters – but he wouldn't answer his phone. We regrouped the next day at the park to discuss what was going on and found out that Kaiba wasn't answering his calls because he was in the middle of several press conferences declaring that these sightings now all over the world had nothing to do with the Kaiba Corporation hologram systems – they'd been running tests to confirm it._

_We headed back to Izzy and Mike's place but as soon as we arrived we could tell that something was wrong – their mother was shaking slightly, clutching a photo book in her hands. Mike managed to prise it from her and get her to tell us what had happened._

_There were three bikers that had shown up at the front door – two of them she had never seen in her life, but the third biker; she would have known him anywhere - while we had been out. She admitted tearfully that she'd let them in to the house, not expecting him to hold her off while his companions searched the house for the three Egyptian God Cards. Mike handed the photo album to Izzy and she had taken a quick glance at the page her mother had found – we watched as she inhaled sharply taking in the image, showing it back to Mike. There was a flash of recognition in his eyes, as their mom kept muttering that she couldn't believe that it was him; that he was simply supposed to be studying in America._

_Alyssa opened her mouth to question this further, but just as she did so, we heard the sounds of bike engines roaring into life – apparently those bikers hadn't gone that far. Izzy immediately jumped to her feet and went after them. We followed in time to hear the middle biker tell her that if she wanted them back, then she would follow them, before they drove off. We took off after the bikers, running into Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor who apparently were also in town to - they were muttering something about the coming darkness and the Great Beast, but we didn't have to deal with them right now as we pressed on – heading towards one of the new construction sites in the area after the whole Anubis incident where we found someone waiting for us._

_But it was not the person that we expected – it was Ophelia waiting for us and she was wearing a strange ornate duel disk, none like any that we had ever seen before, but she wasn't just waiting for us – she was waiting for the Pharaoh. She said that she'd known about the Millennium Items for a while and that the Spirit of the Puzzle was the Nameless Pharaoh. She said those that she was working with wanted his soul, and challenged him to a duel._

_In the middle of the duel, she summoned the stolen Obelisk the Tormentor to battle against the Pharaoh. He'd faired well against it, but it was when she played this other card - the Seal of Orichalcos that things started going weird. When Ophelia played it, it created a green beam of light around both duellists, enclosing them in a space that the rest of us couldn't reach – not that we didn't try. She'd smirked and announced that this was the thing that would take the loser's soul. _

_She pulled out two cards and showed them to her opponent – two cards with two very familiar images on them, Rex and Weevil. She had taken their souls earlier to help awaken this great beast that would apparently correct the mistakes of human kind._

_While this had all been going on, the three bikers, now without helmets showed up to watch the duel from a half finished platform. The taller blond biker of the three of them was clearly the leader and obviously slightly older that his two companions; one of them only slightly younger than him while the final biker only looking younger still – only looking to be about nineteen. It was at this biker that Mike jabbed his finger at one of them, the shorter redheaded one, shouting up at him, seemingly recognising him._

"You?!"

_The biker grinned at him, rubbing his hands in apparent delight, calling down to us_, "Well, well, well, Mike… long time no see. How many years has it been? I would say hello to Izzy to – but as you know she's somewhat occupied with other matters right now, isn't she…?"

"Valon!"

_I blinked and stared at Mike – did he know this guy? Did Izzy know this guy? How did they know this guy? Who was he?_

_This was something all three of us wanted to know – and so Mike somewhat reluctantly obliged us with the information - that, yes, he and Izzy did know the biker, quite well actually - his name was Valon. For some reason, the name rang alarm bells in my own head - like I had heard it before. Alyssa too, looked as though she recognised the name as well. Eventually, it clicked – this Valon character was their cousin. Although, I had never meet him before, I had a vague memory of Izzy mentioning her Australian cousin once to me not long after we had first become friends, all those years ago. _

_They had gone over to visit couple years back – I think Izzy and Mike must have been about ten and eight at the time, but they hadn't seen their cousin since – sure, their mom had got letters from the brother who had emigrated to Australia years before Izzy had been born, but according to Mike, the last that they'd heard about Valon was that after being in trouble with the law, he was supposed to be off studying in America, making a better future for himself. We could see now that that was a lie – he was part of this biker gang. I frowned –where we were now supposed to be fighting their own cousin. _

_While this was all going on, the Pharaoh managed to win the duel, but only just. As the monsters faded, Ophelia called up to the tallest of the three biker-dudes, who had been watching the duel just as we had been doing. She threw Obelisk up to him and shouted his name: _"Raphael_!" I guess that meant we now had two of the biker's names – Valon and Raphael._

_He caught it as the green seal of light around Ophelia contracted suddenly, and for a moment I saw her sneering expression that we had seen so often at school disappeared to be replaced by one of complete fear, before she fell forwards hitting the ground as the light vanished._

_The one we now knew to be Raphael glared at the Pharaoh who demanded the return of the God Cards, but he was refused – having been told that the Gods now served a new master, but as a consolation prize he could have the souls of Rex and Weevil back. Then the three bikers hightailed it out of there, and it was too late to chase after them, but from what it sounded like it wasn't going to be the last that we'd heard of them._

_We couldn't leave Ophelia in the state that she was in, so we took her to the hospital, although there was nothing that we could now for her, but before we did Alyssa noticed the small green glowing necklace around the girl's neck – one that the other bikers had also been wearing. It was something that may have been useful against these bikers, so we borrowed it. We would give it back to Ophelia when all this was over._

_As we were leaving the hospital, Izzy's phone rang again and she answered it. She listened carefully to the caller before she nodded, saying that she would get there as soon as she could. Ending the call, she turned to us, telling us that was Professor Hawkins and that he needed to speak to her up at the museum, which was the place that we were going to be heading next._

_On the way, Mike asked his sister if the Professor's granddaughter, Rebecca, was going to be there to. She said that she didn't know; he never said. The younger boy shuddered obviously remembering the last time that he'd crossed paths with the American Champion. I don't think it was a memory that he was fond of – according to Cassie and Alyssa; it had ended with Mike going on a date with her. Apparently, Rebecca Hawkins has a crush on him._

_Anyway, we headed up to the Museum to meet the Professor. Mike instinctively ducked and hid behind me when we heard the sound of a young girl running towards us to. Rebecca hugged him fiercely, and eventually with great difficulty, we managed to haul her off him as her grandfather approached, smiling slightly as he greeted us to. He took us through to stone tablet with the Pharaoh's memories on it where he asked Izzy if it was true that she shared a bond with the Nameless Pharaoh himself. We watched as she nodded, touching the Millennium Puzzle as she did so. Professor Hawkins chuckled and said that he had thought so – he just wanted to confirm it with her._

_According to these relics that he and his partner, Dr Moto had found recently, the game of Duel Monsters that we knew today wasn't from the time of Ancient Egypt, but were much older than anybody could have imagined. They came from the time of the legendary lost civilisation of Atlantis that sank beneath the waves almost 10,000 years ago_.

_When some of us exchanged glances at the mention of his colleague, Professor Hawkins laughed slightly and admitted that he knew that some of us might have met his friend before – well actually I only think Mike has, but the rest of us had certainly heard about him._

_Professor Hawkins went on to explain to us that he had reason to believe that the monsters in the sky were creatures from a parallel world and that something might soon destroy both worlds – our world and the world of the Duel Monster creatures._ _He finished by adding that he believed the Pharaoh was brought back to save the world. I almost told him to join the club, but didn't when I caught the glare of Cassie, telling me to keep my comments to myself._

_Before he and Rebecca left, Izzy showed him the green necklace that Ophelia had been wearing._ _Professor Hawkins looked at it curiously and requested to borrow so that he could examine it further. He promised that he would keep in touch with us about the Atlantis developments. Mike eventually managed to wrench himself free of Rebecca's grasp and followed us._

_As we left the museum Izzy stopped short, and tilted her head, asking if we had heard something – she said it was a voice calling out for help. We hadn't heard anything and so she shrugged it off as she and Mike headed back to their home leaving the rest of us to do the same – to presumably tell their mother that it had in deed been her nephew who had arrived at their doorstep earlier that morning._

_The next day, we woke to see these bright lights swirling in the sky, very much like the Northern Lights but for some reason these were not as majestic - particularly with the extremely large eye that was floating above us in the sky, looming down on us all, creating this howling wind. Mike and Izzy showed up a few moments after I had found Cassie and Alyssa in the park as the Eye started blasting bolts at our city._

_Izzy's duel disk started glowing and we watched as she pulled out the source of the light and held it up so that she could see it – from where I stood I could see that it was a blue dragon card that I had never seen before, let alone knew Izzy even had in her deck. Izzy had barely enough time to register what it was before the winds howled louder than they had before, swirling around her as she raised this new card to the sky and shouted it's name_: "Timaeus!"

_A beam of light shot from the card that she was holding, striking the large floating Eye and causing it to disappear and take with it the swirling lights in the sky. It seemed that we had won a reprieve, but only a small one – as Izzy pointed out when we gathered back at their place the following morning. Professor Hawkins had been right about the fact that there was a parallel world of monsters; she said that she had been there herself with the Pharaoh the night before the incident with the floating Eye._

_The Dark Magician Girl had drawn them to that world where they had been told that this Great Beast was threatening to destroy both of our worlds and that the only hope was with the resurrection of the three legendary dragons. Izzy said that one of them was Timaeus and that together she and the Pharaoh had released him. He had refused to do it unless she did it to. She pulled this card out so that we could have a look at it. It's hard to believe that this small little thing stopped the Eye from destroying the city, but then again, these things shouldn't be that strange to us, if we really stopped and thought about it._

_It was at that point that Izzy's mom knocked the door and gave her a parcel that had just arrived. There was a letter with a video and card that had a picture of a key, and underneath it all were five plane tickets. It came special delivery from Industrial Illusions, which meant only one thing - it was from Maximillion Pegasus._

_We had several votes of getting rid of it without even looking at it; Mike was adamant about throwing it out, having already had bad experience with a videotape and Pegasus, but Izzy over-ruled him and slotted the video into the player. She said that Pegasus hadn't long been out of hospital from the helicopter crash from the whole Pyramid of Light incident and that he had helped with that. Izzy said that she had a feeling that Pegasus wouldn't do something like that again and added as a final note that Yami also happened to agree with her._

_We told her that it would be on her own head as the rest of us hid behind the door and various chairs as she pressed the play button. From our various positions, we heard Pegasus greet Izzy cheerily over the video_ _as 'Isabella' –the game creator is the only one that we know who calls Izzy by her full first name. I shot a look with Mike as we emerged to hear Pegasus start explaining what was going on in the world to the best of his knowledge._

_He knew, as we did, that some outside force was planning to destroy mankind, but he also said that there were things that both Izzy and the Pharaoh needed to hear from him, however, it was to dangerous to send it via the video. She needed to come and see him herself, in America straight away and to bring the rest of us along, because as he rightly pointed we would just come anyway. He finished by telling Izzy not to loose the card that he had sent; that it was vital that it did not fall into 'their' hands. At the end of it, we decided that we had nothing else to lose and since the flight was going to be the day after tomorrow we decided that we would indeed fly over to America to find out what Pegasus wanted. _

_The flight was mostly uneventful for the most part – we spent most of it sleeping but towards the end of the flight, Izzy's deck started glowing. We watched as she pulled it out to find that it was Timaeus. It faded as quickly as it had started – like it was reaching out and searching for something, and then once it had found it, the power that pulsed through it faded._

_Almost instantly after we left the airport and started to be driven towards Pegasus' company and Izzy switched her phone back on – in case someone needed to get in contact with her – it rang and of all the people that it could have been - it was Kaiba. Apparently he was also in America and he had been trying to call her for the previous three hours, but her phone had been switched off. He wanted to know if she knew anything about Doma and about Critius. She admitted that she knew very little, but we heard her promise that if she learnt any more information then she would let him know._

_While Izzy was talking, I noticed some bikers following our car for a time before disappearing into side-roads – two of them were the bikers that had stolen the God Cards from Izzy back in England - Raphael and Valon. I recognised them instantly, but it took a moment for me to recognise the third biker. It was Mai Valentine. We had not seen her since Battle City, but she had kept in touch with us. However, over the months that followed contact with her had faded and we had not heard from her for ages. I had wondered if she was alright – she hadn't responded to any of our calls or letters or emails, but what was she doing here?_

_We arrived at Pegasus's place to find that it was completely deserted, empty – there was nobody there, not even the game creator himself. As we turned to leave, I heard Cassie grumble about being dragged all the way over here for nothing, but as we approached the exits, the doors that had been wide open only moments before slammed shut, locking us in. Mike shot his sister a look to say:_ "I told you something like this would happen."

_I whole-heartedly agreed with him as our new pals – the bikers emerged from wherever they had been hiding to greet us. Valon smirked, waving slightly at his two younger cousins before Mai appeared to because, it turns out, she was one of them. While the other two went upstairs to watch, Mai challenged me to a duel, not the Pharaoh, me. She flashed a card at us and said that we were too late to see Pegasus; she had already taken his soul. _

_I confess – things really weren't going to well for me in that duel. I'd come fourth in Battle City last summer, so I really should have been able to hold my own, but Mai was hammering me. The Seal of Orichalcos was giving her all the advantages and with the knowledge that the loser would lose their soul, I admit I was far too reluctant to attack Mai myself._

J_ust as I was about to admit defeat, I saw a blinding flash of white light in front of me and then there was a similar glow from behind me. I blinked and found myself away from the duel in a huge chamber with a large dragon statue and I was not alone either – Izzy and the Pharaoh floated down from somewhere above to join me. Izzy caught me staring at them both; I noticed that her cheeks turned a slightly darker shade of pink as she let go of his hand. It was surreal seeing the Pharaoh; I had never seen him in person before and I have to admit Alyssa was right – he really does look like he does in the stone tablet._

_Apparently this was the place that the both of them had been brought to the other night by the Dark Magician Girl, but when they had been here last, there had been two other crystallised dragons besides Timaeus but now there was only one left. It was this one that the Pharaoh believed to be waiting for me - and to free this dragon, I had to pull this sword from the crystal which I did, but as I did, I think I also heard a voice telling me the dragon's name was Hermos and that to bond with it, I had to just call it's name. It was no sooner had I done it, that I felt myself being blasted back to the duel and to the start of my turn._

_I was feeling slightly more optimistic than I had been previously as I drew the top card from my deck, and blinked. This was a card that I had never seen before, let alone had in my deck, but something inside told me that this was the only way that I would be able to win. I shrugged my thoughts away and summoned Hermos to the field much to the surprise of most people watching – all except the Pharaoh who explained to the others what had just happened while I recovered the duel and even got as far as almost winning._

_Mai came to this realisation to - she fell to her knees, screaming that she would not lose; she could not loose to me, of all people. The last thing that I remembered before I blacked out was that Valon was leaping off the banister where he and the other one had been watching Mai and me duel, slamming his fist into the seal and screaming something about breaking it. I felt the seal crackle and break around me as the darkness overcame me. I woke up moments later to find that Mai and the other two bikers had gone._

_It was at that moment that Kaiba and Mokuba decided to show up and walked through the now unlocked doors. Mike and Cassie both greeted the younger Kaiba cheerily enough, but Kaiba – he nodded at Izzy in a silent greeting, but then he took one look at me, and snorted, making another one of his comments about me being unworthy to call myself a real duellist. I tried scrambling to my feet to go and punch him, but my centre of balance hadn't quite returned – and so I stumbled and would have fallen over had it not been for Alyssa and Izzy supporting me. He sneered at me again._

_Izzy told Kaiba sharply to leave me alone; and although still smirking, he did. We watched them with interest – this after all was the first time that we'd seen them together in the same room after they both skipped out on Prom together._

_A few moments later, Duke Devlin showed up as well. It seems that he had heard on the grapevine that we were in America – that grapevine was Sam, our friend and his girlfriend - she had been about to go on holiday with her parents and so wasn't able to come with us, but she'd told Duke on the phone that we were coming over here to America and so he'd come to find us and give us a hand._

_Kaiba brought us back to the task at hand, and asked Izzy if she had found anything else about this Doma thing. She shook her head, but then she pulled the strange card that Pegasus had sent only days before, and said that she might know a place that could have some answers._

_As we headed upstairs, Duke explained that there had been one was room that he had found that he'd not been able to open – it had a card key lock. He showed us the door and Izzy slotted the card into the lock. We stood in silence for a moment before we heard the lock click and the door swung open._

_It was like stepping into a cartoon world – from somewhere close nearby, Kaiba muttered something about hating toons, and although I might not get on with him, I have to say I agreed with him on this occasion. There was flickering light and a holographic projector burst into life, projecting an image of Pegasus himself. Apparently, he had thought ahead as his hologram greeted all of us._

_This mysterious man, known only as Dartz had been buying out his company in recent weeks, but this man was more dangerous than we thought, for he had an ancient power, stronger than anything that Pegasus had ever encountered before. He said that he believed that this Dartz character planned to use Duel Monsters to destroy civilization, as we knew it and that somewhere in this room was the key to stopping him. Mike found it and gave it to his sister. It was completely blank card, but Pegasus carried on regardless. He claimed that he had been doing his own further research into the origin of his game – and that it hadn't started in Ancient Egypt like he had thought, but it had actually been much earlier in the legendary age of Atlantis. It was his belief that Dartz was trying to resurrect this terrifying beast by draining the souls and feeding them to the beast._

_Well, that at least explained why those bikers were so obsessed with collecting our souls._

_Seto snorted again as the hologram faded and said that he had come to save his company and not head out chasing some fairy story. He continued in that fashion for several moments, until Alyssa interrupted him to point out that we didn't believe that he and Izzy had gone on a date together – so he wasn't the one to talk about disbelief. Duke shot his head up at that and asked if it were true – both of them fiercely denied it. Izzy actually told us not to be ridiculous._

_She then pulled a face and said that she had heard about this Great Beast from the Dark Magician Girl and that the key to stopping it was with the three legendary dragons. She flickered through her deck and held Timaeus out; I did the same with Hermos and so did Kaiba albeit reluctantly, producing the third and final dragon - Critius._

_He'd got it like I had – in the middle of duelling against one of the bikers. It turns out that someone had been quietly buying shares of his company and slowly taking over it and so he had gone directly to what he had believed to be the source – Pegasus on his Island, only it hadn't been Pegasus, but rather the third biker by the name of Alister that we had met in England. He had shouted something about a Beast, but Kaiba had dismissed it. He left taking his younger brother who said a very hasty goodbye to Mike and Cassie, leaving the rest of us at slight odds at what to do._

_Eventually we decided that the best course of action would be to find Professor Hawkins and see if he had any more information on Atlantis – and so despite Mike's protests that this plan also included seeing Rebecca as well, we piled into Duke's car to drive to where the Professor lived._

_What we found there was far from what we expected. The house had been reduced to rubble, blown up by an explosion - thankfully neither Rebecca nor her grandfather had been in it at the time. Rebecca told us tearfully in their mobile home that she had just got back from getting the groceries to find her grandfather being forced into a helicopter by some thugs before they blew up their home – destroying both the house and the laboratory, and everything that her grandfather had been working on – the only thing that hadn't been destroyed was the green crystal necklace which she handed back over to Izzy, who put it her pocket._

_She sat miserably after that, and nothing any of us, even Mike, said was going to cheer her up. Eventually, while Cassie, Mike and Duke began the process of getting some dinner, Alyssa and myself having been banned from going anywhere near the kitchen, Izzy took Rebecca outside, presumably I thought to talk about the younger girl not giving up. However, when they returned, Rebecca did not look any better and out of the corner of my eye I noticed Izzy slip something into her pocket._

_As we settled down for the night, I thought little of it, until of course I woke up to find that Izzy had gone. Rebecca hadn't shown the rest of us a note that had been dropped when the men had taken the Professor – it was a challenge for the Pharaoh from Raphael – if he came we would get the Professor Hawkins back safe and sound. Rebecca admitted that Izzy had left not long previously for the valley where it said that the guy was waiting. It was about an hour's drive from where we were – Izzy had taken Rebecca's horse._

_Alyssa and Cassie agreed to hold down the fort with Rebecca while Duke, Mike and myself went after Izzy, but before Duke had even started up the car engine, we saw a figure stumbling towards us, limping on a stick as he walked. Rebecca screamed that it was her grandfather and hurtled forwards to meet him._

_Mike asked him urgently if he had seen Izzy, but the Professor had shaken his head – he'd not seen anything of her since he had met us in England. The rest of us exchanged fearful glances – so it was just a ruse to get the Pharaoh come willingly to the challenge. We took off in Duke's car, more determined than ever to reach the Pharaoh before it became too late._

_As we neared the valley, my phone started ringing and I answered it. It was Alyssa – after we had left they'd started some research to find out exactly whom this Raphael was - it turns out that this Raphael was one of two survivors of a shipwreck ten years ago – the other was his cousin, a young girl. I had to ask her to repeat the name to ensure that I had heard her correctly, because that girl was Ophelia. Ophelia from school – all this time she'd been with us and we never knew. She'd known all about everything along. _

_I scowled - this was becoming something of a family affair – first with Valon and Izzy and Mike, and now again with Ophelia and Raphael._

_I thanked Alyssa and hung up, just in time to see the glowing green pillar blast up into the sky. Someone had just played the Seal of Orichalcos which meant that someone was going to loose their souls._

_We arrived at the edge of a cavern to find Rex and Weevil – of all people watching the Pharaoh and Raphael duel on a cliff platform. Apparently, they had followed us from England, but that did not matter much as we to watched the duel in front of us. There was no way that we could anything to help as eventually the impossible happened, and the Pharaoh lost._ _We had to cover our ears as a helicopter sweep over us to where Raphael was standing, throwing a ladder down to him. He climbed up – carrying Izzy's body with him, tossing it to us – shouting that we could have the Pharaoh back. He had taken all that he needed. I think Rex and Weevil scrambled up the ladder as it swept past us and into the distance, but at that moment we had more pressing issues to deal with – trying desperately to wake Izzy up._

_Eventually, Izzy began to stir and shift on the ground. Duke asked her how the Pharaoh had managed to outsmart Raphael and escape from the seal, but she did not answer, she did not look at us, and when finally she opened her mouth, it was to say that he hadn't outsmarted Raphael – the biker had succeeded in taking a soul. It was with a sickening feeling that we watched 'Izzy' then rise to her feet and turn towards us, blinking back tears from a pair of much darker blue eyes – the eyes of the Pharaoh. _

_Mike moved closer to him, jabbing his finger at him - demanding that he denied it and say that it wasn't true, but the Pharaoh could only shake his head, breaking down as he admitted to us that he had lost – he'd lost control of himself and Izzy had paid the price for it. She had been taken his place by the seal. When he was able to talk to us, he admitted that it was not Raphael who had played the seal, but him – we listened as he told us that he'd let the biker's words get to him and he had lost control of his anger and rage, playing that accursed card forced upon him by Raphael through Card Exchange. He claimed that Izzy had tried to prevent him from playing it, but he had ignored her and done it anyway._

_Mike, then, having been so quiet through the Pharaoh's story exploded – shouting that it was _his_ fault that his sister was now gone and after everything that she ever done for him and this was the way that he repaid her – by betraying the very trust that she had in him. The Pharaoh took it in silence – hanging his head, unable to look at any of us knowing as we did, that Mike was telling the truth. We could see it in his eyes when he did look at us that he knew how much unwavering faith Izzy always had in him. _

_It took most of the ride back to the caravan for Mike to calm down and stop muttering darkly under his breath about the Pharaoh, occasionally glancing behind the car checking that he was still following us on Rebecca's horse. We pulled up outside the caravan in the early hours of the afternoon – the journey having been spent for the most part in personal silences. The girls and the professor came out to greet us while behind us the Pharaoh slipped down from the horse, unable to meet the girls' eyes as they asked if this meant that he had won._

_When he would not respond, Mike answered for him – telling them that he'd lost and that Izzy was gone. They stared at him in much the same way that we had done – almost unable to believe it was possible that the Pharaoh could lose or do something as reckless as he had done in that duel. He in turn kept his eyes on the ground, ashamed and guilty about his actions. Eventually, our silence was broken by the Professor who asked us all to come inside. He told us that he might have found some new information._

_The Professor had only been able to translate some on the ancient inscriptions, but from what he could tell Atlantis was a civilization thousands of years ago that became far more advanced than any other. He believe it have been a time of peace, until some dark monster was release by an evil king. I watched the Pharaoh squirm uncomfortably at that for some reason. Professor Hawkins went on to tell us that this king drew his strength from a mysterious stone, and the stone drew its strength from another world; and he wondered if this stone was the same stone in the green necklace._

_From his corner, the Pharaoh pointed out that he no longer had the necklace anymore - Raphael must have taken it back. He added that Raphael had told him about his cousin – Ophelia and that she was the only family that he had. He'd told him that she had been a part of the Doma Organisation as long as Raphael himself had been and that Ophelia had been keeping an eye on us, and reporting our movement to Dartz for months, particularly after hearing some kind of advice from another source. Apparently, the revelation that his colleague was related to Mike and Izzy had come as much as a surprise to Raphael and Alister as much as we had been shocked to learn that Ophelia was Raphael' cousin._

_Anyway, the Professor also believed that this organisation, Doma had it's roots back to the Age of Atlantis, and that they were hiding this dark monster. He had suspicions that they may be trying to resurrect this 'great beast'. Even after Alyssa called Marik to see if he knew anything about this Atlantis stuff, we were no closer than we had been previously – Marik had never even heard of it until we called him, but what Alyssa did point out after she's ended the call was that the bikers seemed to have one thing in common, they seemed to be after souls, and now she wondered whether or not this 'great beast' could have something to do with it as well._

_When Mike asked him if there was anything else, the Professor admitted that he hadn't been able to translate the rest of the ancient texts which meant all we really needed to begin our quest to rescue Izzy were those underwater ruins. Rebecca pointed out to us that there was a slight flaw in our plan – the underwater relics that her grandfather had discovered had since been stolen, they were gone, but all hope was not lost, when Professor reminded us that his partner, Dr Moto, had organised copies of the ruins for study in a Floridian museum, we could use them instead. However, getting down there may have been slightly more problematic. Mike said that he didn't care how we got there as long as we rescued his sister; the Pharaoh adding his agreement – wanting to get Izzy back just as much as the rest of us._

_While we were pondering how to get down to Florida to see these relics, the Pharaoh left the caravan to call Kaiba to see if he could give us a lift and from what we could hear from Kaiba's angry voice, I guess the Pharaoh must have let it slip about what had happened. When he returned, he told us rather dejectedly that Seto wasn't going to be any help – apparently he hadn't taken very kindly to finding out what he'd lost and so wasn't going to be of any help to us, least of giving us a lift down to Florida._

_We agreed that the best plan would be to catch the local train to the airport and then fly to the state. Alyssa, Cassie, Mike, the Pharaoh and myself would take the train while Duke stayed with Rebecca and her grandfather – she did try to persuade Mike to stay with them. At the station, Mike told her that Izzy was out there somewhere and he wasn't going to stop until he found her – even if it meant heading straight into unknown danger; he couldn't abandon his sister, shooting a side-ways at the Pharaoh. Reluctantly, Rebecca agreed and off we went._

_The Pharaoh kept fiddling with the three orbs on Izzy's necklace, as the train moved, twisting them, around and around, and staring miserably out of the train window. Eventually, the Pharaoh stood up and left us, claiming that he wanted to have a few moments alone._ _A few moments after he'd gone, Cassie grabbed my arm suddenly, and pointed out the flash of fire that zoomed past on the horizon through the window – it disappeared just as suddenly as it appeared. We did not know what it was and neither did the Pharaoh when he returned – the two orbs on the necklace that Izzy always wore, glistening in the sunlight as he shook his head. He had not even been aware that it had been there until we mentioned it._

_It was also about this point that we began to realise that something else was not right either – the train that had been so packed earlier was now deserted. The Pharaoh thought that this was another trap._ _He took off running down the train- Mike at his heels, unwilling to let the Pharaoh out of his sight, which honestly, I don't really_ _blame him for, and Cassie close behind them both. Alyssa and I brought up the end. We hardly got a few carriages down the train, before we heard a loud clunk beneath the Pharaoh's feet as something disconnected the carriages that we were on – both the Pharaoh and Mike were already across as the two carriages started to pull apart – there was no way that either Alyssa or myself would be able to reach them, but Cassie's momentum propelled her across to the other carriage where Mike and the Pharaoh pulled her to her feet. We could do nothing, but watch as our own carriage started to slow down with nothing to pull it along._

"Oi, take care of them…!"_ Alyssa shouted across at the other end of the rapidly leaving train, _"Make sure that they don't do anything stupid." _At the time, I wasn't sure which of the three of them she was yelling at, but on reflection, I think it was more directed at Cassie._

_Eventually, our carriage came ground to a halt, screeching loudly along the tracks, scattering dust and dirt everywhere. We hopped down to find an old friend waiting for us – Rex Raptor and he looked ready for a fight. I hadn't seen him since he and Weevil grabbed a hold of the helicopter ladder and apparently since then, the pair of them ha made some new friends and a new goal – our souls, or more precisely mine and the Pharaoh's. Alyssa demanded to know exactly where the others were, but Rex shrugged her off, telling us both that we need not concern ourselves with them. He then produced one of those cards and slammed it into his duel disk creating another Seal of Orichalcos – it forced Alyssa to skid back several feet, while locking me inside the green light of doom._

_This was a duel that I knew I had to win, but at the same time, I knew exactly what the cost would be and as Rex's life points tumbled to zero and he pleaded with me to spare him, I promised him that we would find a way of saving him, and all the others._

_We followed the tracks for what seemed like hours, carrying Rex with us, switching between us along the endless stretch of desert to some form of civilization. We could only hope that the others, wherever they were safe and that we would find a way back to them. After a while, Alyssa pointed out something in the distance in the sky – it was an aeroplane gliding across the sky in an – it almost seemed as though it was falling, but then we saw that it was falling very rapidly and would soon crash. I had to shift Rex's weight on my back, for I was the one carrying him by this point, to stop him from falling as my duel disk started glowing and a beam of light shot out towards the plane; we watched as Hermos soared in the sky. The other two legendary dragons joined him and flying together towards the aeroplane._

_We shared a look and started running as fast we could in that direction - if Timaeus was up there, it also had to mean that the Pharaoh was nearby and with him, hopefully Mike and Cassie. As we reached a hill, watching the three dragons guide the falling aeroplane safely to the ground, I heard someone shout my name and then call Alyssa's name as well. Straining to look at the source of the voice, we saw the others – Mike and Cassie waving at us, and the Pharaoh following close behind them, as the aeroplane skimmed across the ground, shuddering to a halt, we watched to see who it was in the plane, and in true typical fashion, it was none other than our 'dear' friends Kaiba and Mokuba, and one of the bikers._

_Kaiba wasn't that happy to see us when he jumped from the plane, carrying the soulless Alister – least of all, the Pharaoh, apparently Kaiba was still furious about the whole losing thing, but fortunately for us Mokuba was a little more glad to see us than his older brother. He followed his brother down to the ground, waving at more Kaiba Corp. helicopters, clutching a small action figure he claimed was Alister's._

_As we waited for the helicopters to land Mokuba filled us in with what had happened to them both – their plane had been hijacked by Alister and just as I had been, Kaiba had been forced into a duel, but unlike me, Kaiba and his opponent had their match on top of the plane itself. Alister blamed Kaiba for something that had happened to his younger brother – they had both come from war zone in which Kaiba's stepfather had presided over weapons supply. Alister had made it out alive; his brother hadn't been so lucky – captured by an enemy army and he blamed Kaiba for the loss of his brother, but Mokuba swore to us that however horrid their stepfather, Gozaburo, had been, he would never have done anything like that._

_Kaiba, it seemed did not dispute what Mokuba was telling us. I watched him from the corner of my eye where he was having a quieter conversation with the Pharaoh who was nodding in agreement to whatever it was that Kaiba was talking about._

_I didn't have time to dwell on it any further, however, because the other helicopters had finally landed, and one of Kaiba's men was hurtling towards us – bringing the news that Kaiba Corporation had been brought out – Kaiba had lost his company. It was these few remaining helicopters and the men inside it were all those who were still loyal to their now ex-boss. Kaiba ordered one of the helicopters to take both Alister and Rex to a hospital while the rest of us clambered aboard another helicopter to fly down to Florida and get the rest of the translations from the Museum._

_As the desert gave way to forests and towns, the Pharaoh sat staring out of the window. I have to admit he didn't look as depressed as he had been anymore, which was something I have to say, and even more to the point he even had that gleam from Battle City in his eyes – I think he had his determination back, that he had something to fight for again. I enquired about it; Cassie and Mike started to explain what had happened to the tree of them since we had parted._

_The three of them had reached the end of the train, only to find that there was no one driving it – just as the other passengers had vanished, so to had the guards and the driver. They had been alone, or so they had thought they were. As Mike and the Pharaoh moved forwards to the controls to stop the train, or at the very least slow it down, the train driver's seat swivelled around to reveal Weevil cackling like a maniac. He directed them on the roof with promises that he had information about where Izzy might be. It had only been a ruse, however, to lure the Pharaoh on to the top of the train and force him into a duel – of course, not before Cassie had punched Weevil in the jaw first for throwing her off the boat to Duelist Kingdom. _

_Cassie told me quietly that she and Mike had never seen the Pharaoh look as furious as he did when Weevil tore up a card that he claimed was the only thing that would save the Pharaoh's 'other half' and although the Bug Duelist had been lying; it had not stopped the Pharaoh from unleashing his brutal onslaught against his opponent. He had only stopped when Mike had yanked his arm away from his duel disk, asking him to think of what Izzy would say about what he was doing. The Pharaoh had stopped then; he'd known that Mike was right, but it was at that moment that the train had plummeted over a cliff top to depths below._

_Mike continued, by adding that he had woken up in a tent sometime later by rather large dog that then proceeded to jump on Cassie and the Pharaoh, licking them all to death. A young girl, clothed in a native dress appeared in the doorway of the tent, calling the dog to her side. She'd apologised for waking them and that her name was Chris and her dog was Sky. It had been Sky who had found the trio by the river by the train wreck – her grandfather was still there collecting some of the stuff that had fallen from the cliff._

_She took them to see him; he introduced himself as Ironheart. He had collected all the cards that had fallen from the Pharaoh's disk, making a comment about Timaeus as he held it out to him. The Pharaoh took his deck back willingly, checking that all of them were still present, but then he pulled Timaeus from his deck and handed it back to Ironheart – claiming that he was not worthy to possess the legendary dragon and that Ironheart should keep it. The old man had smiled as he put Timaeus away, after telling the Pharaoh that he would hold on to it until he was ready to have it back – he had waited a long time to meet someone like the Pharaoh. When the three of them had stared at him horror – Ironheart had chuckled and told them all that he had his sources. _

_He added to that the Pharaoh looked like he was also searching for something, or even someone to which the Pharaoh admitted that he just wanted to see Izzy again and above all to tell her that he was sorry for what he had done to her – even Mike claimed that he couldn't deny the sincerity in the Pharaoh's voice. Ironheart had then asked that if he was truly serious about it, then he knew of a place that might be of help._

_He and his granddaughter had taken them to a valley, but there had been nothing there but rocks and dust, surely not anything that would have brought Izzy back. Ironheart insisted that this valley was unlike most places; one in which spirits could return to this world, and that if the Pharaoh was still serious about wanting to see his 'other half' again, he would have to go down to the stone circle, but he would have to do it alone._

_Mike explained that he and Cassie weren't allowed to go with the Pharaoh – merely only to watch as he found a way down to the stone circle directed to him by Ironheart. They had watched in anticipation as orbs of light had descended from the sky and come together in a much brighter glow which in turn faded, leaving Izzy in it's place. There had been silence for a moment – neither Cassie nor Mike heard what was exchanged between the two of them initially, until they heard Izzy raise her voice._

_It had carried up to them on the cliff as she shouted at how much she'd always trusted him; that Yami given her his word after that duel with Seto on the tower, that he wouldn't do anything as stupid or reckless again like that again – even from the distance that they were standing, they could see that the Pharaoh was flinching at her words. She screamed at him that he had betrayed her when he played the Seal and that now, she would return the favour to him and make sure that his soul was locked away with hers – where it belonged. They had watched as Izzy turned on her heels, marching away from him, swinging her arm out as a duel disk materialised and forcing the Pharaoh into facing her in a duel. Neither Mike nor Cassie knew where Izzy had got it from – but despite the Pharaoh's frantic attempts to prevent her from playing the card, she still activated the Seal of Orichalcos._

_Cassie muttered quietly in my ear so that no one else in the helicopter could overhear, while they had been watching this duel, Iron Heart had also noted to them both that the spirit plane was an extremely dangerous place and that only those with strong enough souls were able to enter and leave unharmed, and if the Pharaoh was prepared and willing to do this just to see her again, then it seemed to him at least, that Izzy must clearly mean more to the Pharaoh than he was maybe willing to admit._

_They had continued watching Izzy and the Pharaoh duel in the cavern below; Mike said grimly that every move that Izzy made was an exact copy of the moves the Pharaoh had made against Raphael. It was a lesson for the Pharaoh, they were sure of it but the question was, could he learn it before it was too late. Eventually, Iron Heart explained to them that this was the first step on the road to recovery for the Pharaoh. It turns out that he had been struggling against the darkness within his heart, and that this duel not only gave the Pharaoh the chance to seek Izzy's forgiveness for what he had done; but also the chance to forgive himself and learn to conquer the darkness within himself._

_Izzy sent an attack flying towards the Pharaoh, but he activated a trap card throwing it straight back at her – then realising in horror that Izzy wouldn't survive it. As the attack raced back toward her, Mike said he could have sworn that his sister was smiling – somehow Izzy had known that this would happen; she'd wanted the Pharaoh to win all along. She slumped forwards on to her knees, before hitting the ground and he'd darted over to her as soon the holograms had shattered, pulling her into his arms. From the distance they were standing, Mike and Cassie could see Izzy clutch the Pharaoh's hand, clearly telling him something before she faded, disappearing back into orbs of light. _

_The Pharaoh had stared at his hands for a moment, before shouting out her name for the whole valley to hear, swearing that he would save her - no matter what it took or how long it took, he would find a way to rescue her._

_He had sat in that spot not moving for a good few moments, before he stood back up, clearly wanting to come and rejoin the others – of course, after everything we've ever done, the Pharaoh really should have known better than to have thought it was over and indeed it wasn't - the ground started shaking, sending them all tumbling to the floor. Mike and Cassie had picked themselves from the ground to find that there was a large and rather ugly creature standing in the stone circle where Izzy had been only moments before and it wanted a duel, which the Pharaoh only grudging did, having been locked inside yet another Seal of Orichalcos. Ignoring his own advice, Ironheart had charged down towards the Pharaoh, closely followed his granddaughter with Sky to give him Timaeus._

_At last joining in, having been half-listening in on Mike and Cassie's explanation, the Pharaoh added that Chris and Ironheart were actually spirits from Atlantis – they had fought along side the three legendary dragons, Timaeus, Hermos and Critius, against Dartz 10,000 years ago at precisely that very spot. He had seen that battle in a vision while he had been battling the Orichalcos solider. They had both fallen trying to get Timaeus back to the Pharaoh so he could destroy the creature. Cassie finished their story by telling us that eventually they had managed climb up the cliff and get back to the tracks. They had followed the line back until, like us, they had seen Kaiba's falling plane and following Timaeus to where they had finally spotted us._

_From his corner, Kaiba snorted and opened his mouth, presumably to say what a ridiculous notion that was, but he was interrupted by the pilot who announced that there was an incoming message on the 'red line' communication. Kaiba cracked his laptop open and told us smugly that he already had his men in position and that they were transferring the data from the museum as we spoke._

_The connection did not last that long, but it was enough to get the data that we needed – those underwater ruins and the secrets locked within them. Under instructions from the Pharaoh, Kaiba sent the data to Professor Hawkins to translate, but the images were too bleary – he wouldn't have been able to read much of it._

_Kaiba, proving that he can be helpful occasionally, suggested the means of improving the image quality with the Kaiba Corp. main computer – despite Alyssa, Cassie and myself pointing out that Dartz would probably have his men in place there by this point, he ordered the pilot to change our heading accordingly._

_The Pharaoh asked Rebecca where the others were. They were driving down to meet us – she shifted slightly, staring at him and at Mike, who had been staring over his shoulder, that they'd come across Valon on the way and Mai to, but they had taken off on their bikes before either Rebecca or Duke had the chance to do anything. Valon, in particular, didn't seem to be that caring about what had happened - not even caring that his own cousin had been stolen away. It also seems that Valon also seems to have it in for me as well. Mike frowned, and I heard him mutter something about Valon deserving a bloody nose, the next time that he saw that older cousin of his. Anyway, we agreed to meet Rebecca, and Duke and Professor Hawkins by the pier. She told us to be careful, before logging out, leaving us with nothing to do but sit and wait to arrive at Kaiba Corp._

_We arrived about an hour or so later, heading straight for the dock meeting the others as we had arranged – they'd been waiting for us. As to be expected, Rebecca went immediately over to Mike and hugged him – almost squeezing the very life out of him. Alyssa, Cassie and Mokuba all snorted with laughter, as he attempted to wrench himself free - even the Pharaoh was chuckling slightly as the Duke and the Professor came over to welcome us – noting that the Pharaoh looked much happier than when he had seen him before. _

_He nodded and admitted that while we had been in the desert, someone had reminded him what he was fighting for and why he was fighting for it, but Kaiba interrupted him, barked across from the other side of the pier:_ "If you are still planning on coming with me, then I suggest you move it!"

_The Pharaoh rolled his eyes at us, muttering something under his breath before going to follow Kaiba. We watched them both – leaving us wondering that they would be all right; that was until Rebecca perked up that she could hack into Kaiba's computer systems and follow them. It was a good job that she did – she managed to rig her laptop into the Kaiba Corp computer system using the wiring beneath the street and it became apparent almost immediately that this was a good idea –because apparently Kaiba's security card had stopped working, and from the sounds of it, the Pharaoh and Kaiba were being cornered by something that probably wanted to rip them into shreds._

"Need some help you two?!" _Rebecca said cheerily over the new connection, unlocking the next door for them. We heard scurrying movements, followed by a door slam - the Pharaoh giving their thanks as they hurried along more corridors._

"This is insane!"

"Well, if you have a better explanation, Kaiba, I'd like to hear it!"

_While they continued arguing amongst themselves, Rebecca unlocked the rest of the doors for them, but try as she might, she wasn't able to access the mainframe, but that was where Kaiba came back in. He reset the system from his end and ordered the computer to cross-reference the markings on the tablet with every known archaeological and historical source._

_As Professor Hawkins leaned in to get a closer look at the inscription and translate it, I jostled backwards, bumping slightly into Alyssa. It was then that something occurred to me that had not done so previously – Bakura, the 'self-proclaimed' thief hadn't shown his head once in all this. I honestly expected him to take full opportunity of this to destroy the Pharaoh, or at the very least mock him for his mistakes. It was like as if he was keeping his nose out it – I frowned, it was almost as if he wasn't trying to make matters any worse than they already were. He was almost being helpful._

_I opened my mouth to phrase this to the others, then I thought better of it, closing my mouth in time to hear Kaiba shout in frustration over the connection that one of the symbol was a match for a secret financial company who owed small shares in all the major companies – Hitachinn, Suoh and Ootori to name but a few, and of course even Kaiba Corporation. The company's name was Paradias and there was no prize for guessing who was the president of this organisation – none other than our dear ol' friend, Dartz - that man had a lot to answer for, but before we had time to consider this new information any further, Rebecca's computer screen flickered and fuzzed, blinking out of existence. It came back on a instant or two later, but the connection had gone and there was no way to re-establish the link to the system - someone had reset the security codes and therefore she couldn't help either Kaiba or the Pharaoh to get out of there. They were on their own._

_In the meantime, I asked Rebecca if she could find out where this Paradias Company was based – that may have been a good place to find some more answers. It only took her a few moments to get directions, and as luck would have it, it wasn't that far from where we currently were. I was up the ladder before the others could stop me, and running down the streets. I heard the roaring of a motorcycle following me as I ran forwards, but I carried on regardless – I didn't care about it. Well, at that point I didn't – it was only when Valon very nearly ran me over to force me into a duel that I started to care. I had no choice – he wasn't going to let me pass._

_I demanded to know what the hell he thought he was playing at, as I accepted his challenge activating my disk, numbly aware that the victory in this duel would mean that either he or I would loose our souls to Dartz - and for all he had done, and all that he was fighting for, but despite it all at the end of the day, Valon was still her cousin. He freely admitted that it was his fault that we had lost contact with Mai - he taken her to Dartz, but apparently, something had always been holding Mai back from achieving her full potential – me. I told him that once I had fought for her in Battle City, I had fought to save her. Valon chuckled, and said that he'd heard all about that and now it was his turn to save her. _

_I snapped at him that if he was darn gun-hoe about saving someone, he could start with rescuing his own cousin – his own flesh and blood. Did he not care what happened to her?_

_Surprisingly, he shouted back at me that I shouldn't judge him on that alone - that despite how it may look, he did truly care about Izzy and Mike. He knew that they were still family; that she was still his family - he had been assured by Dartz that she would not meet the same fate as the Pharaoh as soon as it become clear where their target was – but she had chosen to take the Pharaoh's place in that soul following that duel with Raphael._

_As we continued, Valon told me that he _had_ been furious when Raphael had returned, bringing the news about the mix up, he'd almost punched his fellow biker in the face, and what was worse was that Dartz had gone back on his word to Valon – he hadn't even cared about it – apparently he'd said he'd still managed to get a powerful soul for the Great Beast, even if it wasn't the Pharaoh's, and the thing was, Valon wasn't the only who had been angry about it either, but there was nothing that he could done about it – as our life points fell nearer and nearer to zero, he admitted that he didn't know how to return souls, but I reassured him that I knew someone who could and would be able to restore the souls. After all I'd seen him do it myself – he'd once restored mine a couple of years ago._

_Valon knew as well as I did that his time was up. As his life point counter hit zero, I made him the same promise that I had made to Rex – that somehow we would find a way to save him and Izzy and everyone else captured by the blasted seal. As the seal began it's slow compression towards him, Valon saw that Mai had been watching from the sidelines, he grinned and smiled at me_, "If you see her before me, tell her that I'm sorry – that I truly am_…" _

_I could have sworn that he still had that smile on his face as the green light vanished, and he slumped forwards to the ground – maybe he wasn't as bad as I thought he was – he cared, and that was all I needed to know._

_I managed to prop him up against the metal fence, before turning to face Mai. She had heard our conversation, and she had been somewhat touched by what we had both said, but she was more than capable of looking after herself and to prove it, she challenged me to another duel._

_You see, the seal is very much like the shadow games that I have had the unfortunate luck of participating in – it drains all your energy like nothing else. It surprises me how the Pharaoh can stand them as much as he does, but, the point was that now I was completely exhausted and had used all my energy facing Valon. I'd accepted from the start that this was one duel I knew that I was going to lose, however, just because I knew that I would lose, it didn't mean that I'd given up on Mai. I kept talking to her as much as much as my energy would allow – hoping that somehow she would breakout of this funk and see sense. _

_On her last turn, when she was about to call her attack that would finish me off, her face changed and she couldn't do it- Mai physically couldn't bring herself to attack me. I felt a smile on my face as the last of my energy faded and I started to fall._

_She caught me and stopped me from falling. I smiled weakly at her, telling her that she had won. Mai protested that that wasn't true, she never called that attack, but I said that it didn't matter – there was no way that I could continue. I pushed her away, hearing the sounds of a crystal smashing as a lost myself to the darkness._

_I blacked out, and knew nothing else, until I heard someone calling my name. It was hazy at first - a lingering sound, a voice that I was struggling to remember to draw to a face and name:_

"Simon!"

_I opened my eyes to see a person before me that I was, quite honestly, delighted to see again. I have to admit there was a part of me that thought I would never see her again._

"Izzy!"

_She smiled wryly at me, from inside the bubble in which she was sitting,_ "The one and only! It's been a while – I've missed you."

"But… your soul… he lost it…"

"… And so did you, otherwise you wouldn't be here – none of us would be here, " _She waved her hands around, and my eyes followed her motion, "_All of these people are those who have lost their souls…"

_She was right – I saw Ophelia, Rex and Weevil, Pegasus, Alister, even, that biker, Raphael who seemed to have it in for the Pharaoh, everyone who had fallen to the seal, and then out of the corner of my eye, my guts wrenched because I had also seen Mai. After all that I had tried, she'd still ended up loosing her soul to._

"She came not long after you did – Raphael beat her when she came to find Dartz."_ Izzy said quietly, clearly noticing my expression. She added, _"… Oh… and I saw Valon to. He said that he was sorry about what he did – he didn't mean for it to hurt us; for it to hurt me."

_I nodded numbly, my attention caught by one of the other bubbles that floated past us:_

"Kaiba!" _What the hell was he doing here? _

"Great. Just when I thought I'd found some peace and quiet…"

"…Why are YOU here?"

"I'm here for the view," _I watched him roll his eyes at me, _"My life point hit zero - why do you think I'm here, you idiot!?"

"Kaiba, why I outta-"

"Oi!" _Izzy snapped across at us,_ "Quit it you two; that's not going to help!"

_Smirking at me, Seto filled us with had happened – more for my benefit than for Izzy's benefit, having just pointed out to us the large portal floating above us that showed the outside world._

_Apparently, since I had been out of commission, they had arrived at the Paradias headquarters to find Raphael waiting for the Pharaoh for a rematch – the winner walked away with their soul; the loser didn't. The only thing was unlike all the other duels, in this one both duellists were left with their souls intact – when Raphael had lost the duel to the Pharaoh he didn't loose his soul. In fact, the somewhat 'reformed biker' had actually helped them escape from the building that had started collapsing around them, and even better than that – he had also given the Pharaoh a computer chip that contained the location of Dartz's real headquarters, an island somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. He hadn't been able to make on to the helicopter that had arrived to take them away, but he had found his own way to Dartz's island to confront the man that he had once called: "Master" about the truth about the accident that had destroyed the only family that he and Ophelia ever known._

_Dartz had even gloated about it – admitting that not only had he been responsible for that, but he had also been responsible for the events that had lead all three bikers to him. Izzy narrowed her eyes, as Kaiba went on to explain that not only had Dartz caused the storm that had destroyed the life that Raphael had known, but it had been his army, under the guise of Kaiba's step-father, that had taken Alister's little brother from him, and that Dartz was also the was the one who had Valon framed for his crime that had landed him in Juvenile Detention in the first place._

_Oh, and somewhere along the lines, he also added, they'd meet up with the armed forces who said they had actually been following Dartz for months, but as Kaiba put so eloquently: _"They were now expecting us to do their job for them."

_This tale was all good and well – but it didn't quite explain the circumstances of how Kaiba got in here. Scowling, he repeated again, that his life-points had hit zero, adding that it had been during a duel tag-team against Dartz._

_I tilted my head – a tag-team duel? A tag-team duel always meant a partnership and a quick glance through the portal above us showed me that the others - Mike, Cassie, Alyssa, and even Mokuba had all knocked unconscious, unable to stand; let alone duel, and that meant that there was only one person who could still be standing and fighting - that was the Pharaoh. He was out there on his own – battling against Dartz, fighting for all of us. _

_Izzy closed her eye, rolling her tongue along her bottom lip. I could have sworn that her lips were moving in a silent prayer for the Pharaoh – despite everything that has happened, even I could see that she still cared deeply about him._

_There was very little that Kaiba, Izzy or myself could do, but wait and watch, and then listen as the Atlantian King taunted and tormented the Pharaoh, leading him closer and closer to surrendering the duel:_

"You can be with her again for all eternity…"

_Even looking back on it, of all things that the words that Dartz chose to distract the Pharaoh from the duel and all that he could have said to seal the Pharaoh's fate, and ours still sends shivers down my spine, but it was the look of utter despair on the Pharaoh's face - that for a moment he was capable of actually believing Dartz, that will haunt me for a long time._

"You can't give up! I still have faith in you; that is something that will never change. Please, just don't give in; you can't let Dartz win."

_Kaiba and I watched as Izzy shuddered in her own bubble, flames rippling around her, seemingly unaware of the energy flowing around her, but our attention was taken away from Izzy to the outside world to where the Pharaoh was mere seconds away from surrendering, his hand lingering only inches above his duel disk. _

_We watched in horror as the seal started to encircle the Pharaoh – his hand still not touching the disk, although I don't know exactly what Kaiba was thinking, but I certainly felt that the feeling of despair was taken over by a sense of surprise as flames appeared around the Pharaoh, and even more unbelievably, actually managed to push the seal back; it forced it back. Even Dartz couldn't believe it when his opponent actually that he wouldn't back down; not while he knew that somewhere, someone still believed him, and that was all he needed._

"Did you…?"

_Kaiba shook his head, narrowing his eyes, watching as the Pharaoh fought on, summoning the three legendary dragons to the field while I watched as Izzy stopped shaking, the flames dying, and she opened her eyes. She caught me staring at her and asked what was wrong._

_She genuinely had no idea of what had just happened, and for some reason, I couldn't quite bring myself to tell her what I had just witnessed – I don't know what force stopped me from doing it, but the thought soon drifted to the back of mind, the memory pushed aside, while more pressing events occurred._

_It turns out that the three Legendary Dragons, Critius, Hermos and Timaeus, were actually three Legendary Knights who had been turned into dragons thousands of years before, and could only be turned back into their 'human' form using the card that Pegasus had entrusted to the Pharaoh not that long ago, and even better when the Pharaoh won the duel against Dartz, these three knights raised their swords to the sky and then one of them, I think it was Timaeus, called out_: "Chosen Duellists cross over into the human world!" _and releasing the three of our souls from the Leviathan and back to our bodies._

_I woke to a world of darkness, alone and afraid that I was still trapped inside that monster, but that was only until I realised that I still actually had my eyes closed. Hastily, I opened them – blinking back the colour that came rushing back to my senses, feeling the cool metallic surface of the helicopter beneath my fingertips._

_It was so good to be back - to simply be alive._

_I scrambled to my feet, deciding that the best course of action would be to find the others – it didn't take much to find them. They were in that main temple area of the Dartz temple. I skidded to a halt, my attention momentarily stolen by the stone images of all the people who had lost their souls– it was just sickening. It had to stop and the three of us were the only ones who could do anything about it._

_Speaking of the three of us, Kaiba was back on his feet and presumably reassuring his brother that he was okay; but even better than that, was the fact that it was Izzy, rather than the Pharaoh who stood before us, rubbing her forehead slightly and smiling. Knowing myself to be grinning like a maniac, I launched myself at her, hugging her fiercely, and it was only when she whispered that she couldn't breath that I let her go._

_It was great to see her again – I know that technically I had seen her when we had been trapped back in the Beast, but the principle still applied as far as I was concerned. She was back where she belonged as where we all – even Kaiba looked happier than I'd seen him for a while but then, as we started to leave for the helicopter, carrying the fallen Raphael between us, Izzy pointed out that while we may have escaped there were countless other souls who were all trapped inside who didn't have the means of escape that we'd enjoyed._

_We couldn't leave them to the eternal darkness, she said, holding out Critius and Hermos to Kaiba and me, we had to at least try and help them – even it didn't or couldn't save them and she was right. Staring at her, I knew she was right – I think we all knew it deep down and what was even more infuriating wasn't even me nor Alyssa, or any of the younger kids who first acknowledged it out loud – it was that Kaiba._

_Without so much as a backwards glance, he took off – heading back towards the temple. I followed him, shouting for him to wait for me, and a few moments later, Izzy brought up the rear – pausing momentarily to retake the stolen God Cards. She caught up with us in the main temple room where the duel against Dartz had taken place earlier, and from whence he had been taken by the Leviathan – but he wasn't the only one who was now missing either. It had only been moments ago that the entire room had been covered in images of people who had lost their souls, now they were all gone. From behind us, Izzy said quietly that they must have already gone to power the Leviathan – even the power from the God Cards was already gone; there was no energy radiating from them anymore – we didn't have much time._

_As she finished, something caught my eye – glimmering and glistening in the corner that I had not noticed before; it had not been there when we had last in this room. It was a portal, the light from it swirling back and forth – tempting us to come forth and enter. Kaiba rolled his eyes, and marched across the room towards it. I asked him where he thought he thought he was going. He snapped across at me,_ "Where do you think I'm going? Are you coming or are you planning on standing there like an idiot."

_I glared at the back of his head – he had no less idea where this portal was going to lead us than I did, but from the corner of my eye, I saw Izzy smile a little, touching the side of the Puzzle, before she too went after Kaiba through the portal._

_I had no choice but to follow them both - walking straight into Kaiba. He turned and glared at me, barking, _"Watch where you're going!"

"You shouldn't be standing there…" _I trailed off, finally noticing that Izzy was no longer standing by his side. She was walking away from us through ruins – these ruins were unlike anything that I had ever seen before; I had a feeling that this place was much older than anything I'd ever see before._

"What is this place?"

_Izzy touched the side of one of crumbling ruins, _"Seto… Simon… I think…" _She pulled her hand away from the surface, finally answering my question_, "I think this is Atlantis…"

_I thought for a moment Kaiba would scoff at her conclusion, but he kept a straight face; he didn't even bother to contradict her. The Pharaoh added that we had best be careful as we headed towards a single beam of green light where Dartz was sitting – seemingly waiting for us to come to him. When we reached him, the Pharaoh reached out to touch the Atlantian king – only to find that 'Dartz shattered in the air on contact._

_We heard the voice of Dartz laughing at us from above, explaining that he had replaced our missing souls with one of equal power – his own and he would re-usher the mighty age of Atlantis once more upon the Earth. As he spoke, the heavens seemed to crack open, and at last we had our first look at this creature that we had spent so much time trying to prevent the return of._

_I will be the first to admit that we did try to fight the Leviathan – we each summoned the legendary knights and the strongest creatures from our decks but even with the additional help of the Dark Magician Girl and her fellow monsters, we didn't even scratch it. Dartz cackled as he flickered all of our attacks aside before he finally send down slimy tentacles to and sucked the three of us into his 'Great Beast'. _

_There is little that I can remember from when I sunk into the sludge, that feeling of complete hopelessness and fear knowing that I had failed to when I heard the Pharaoh's words echoing inside my head. He talked of the darkness, but then he spoke of the light in each of us, and that together, it could counteract any amount of despair and pain. I remember his words:_

"… To remember those you care about…"

_I thought of my friends who had seen me through so much - through thick and thin, the good times and the bad times. I remembered listening to Alyssa and Cassie laughing together before turning their smirks towards me, with mischief in their eyes. I remember Mike grinning with glee with Mokuba. I remembered Mai's smile after Battle City, and seeing her wave back at us as she drove away in her car. I will be the first to admit that Seto Kaiba is a jerk, but jerk or not, he had still come with us each and every time - he would still come all this way with us. I'm well aware that Kaiba will only claim that it was only for his company, but I think that CEO might actually be starting to care._

"… To remember those who helped you…"

_There was no way that we would have gotten this far for people helping us along the way - if Professor Hawkins hadn't been able to translate those ruins, we would never have known what it was that we were dealing with and Rebecca too – she'd helped Kaiba and the Pharaoh get through company building without them both getting torn apart by monsters. I thought too of Duke – this never was his problem, yet he had still made a huge effort to come and find us and help in any way that he could, and if you had asked me, twelve months ago, or even just five months ago, I would have stated repeatedly that I would never trust Pegasus in my life, and now here we were, following the game designer's plea for help from across the Atlantic, following his advise to stop Dartz._

"… To remember what you fought for…"

_I thought of Alister who had lost his brother and yet, he also swore that someday he would find him. I thought next of Raphael and his cousin, Ophelia – we had known her for so many years; and yet we had never thought to ask her about her past – she had never mentioned it to anyone, not even to Máirín, her own friend or else we would have heard of it. She had been given instructions to spy on all of us; Dartz had fed her lies about us but then I remembered that look of fear on her face when she had lost her soul. We had misjudged Raphael, maybe; just maybe we had also misjudged Ophelia. And then there was Valon, whom I knew that I had misjudged entirely. I had thought that he didn't care about anybody, but I now I could see that he truly cared about Mike and Izzy, and Mai._

"… To remember why you never gave up…"

_At last my thoughts turned to Izzy and to the Pharaoh, and despite the insurmountable odds stacked against us, I couldn't help but smile, as I drew energy to help the Pharaoh in anyway that would help – whatever __the odds, I knew that they would find a way to save us, save us all._

_As I closed my eyes, I heard Kaiba's voice echoing from somewhere beside me:_ "Don't screw this up, you hear me!" _as he to gave what he had left of his own energy._

_Cool air rushed past me as I snapped my eyes open just in time to find myself colliding with the hard ground. On impulse, I spat out the dirt before I rolled over and scrambled to my feet, blinking in the sunlight, close to where both Kaiba and the Pharaoh were getting to their own feet._

_How the heck did we get out of there? I soon found out the answer to that – Slifer the Sky Dragon, Obelisk the Tormentor and The Winded Dragon of were towering above us, and had somehow had pulled us out – I have to admit I have never been as glad to see those monsters as I was when I saw them then._

_The Leviathan seemed to snarl in anger, rising high into the air with the three Egyptian Gods in hot pursuit. I had to blink again as they were in turn followed by a fourth shimmering light – the Pharaoh was going to join them._

_I pulled a face and asked,_ "What do we do now?"

_Izzy muttered very softly from behind us, so quietly that for a moment, I didn't think she had even spoken,_ "…We wait." _She gave me a small smile, whispering in my ear,_ "I have faith in him, Simon, and I know that he won't lose."

_And so wait we did, watching as the two forces collided above the clouds with such power and energy that we had to shield our eyes from it – we heard reports much later that the explosion had been seen from at least half-way across the Atlantic. There was a split second in which I was convinced that the whole world had stopped turning as we waited for the light to settle and to finally see who had won. We did not have to wait long for the Great Leviathan to come crashing through the clouds._

"I told you he could do it…" _Izzy said triumphantly, watching as it shattered into pieces, freeing all those souls that had been trapped inside._

_As the Leviathan disappeared from sight, the ground beneath our feet started shaking violently, the ruins of Atlantis already starting to collapse around us. The mighty civilisation that had once lived here had been destroyed 10,000 years ago, and this city had been pulled beneath the waves. We'd seen it rise from the depths but now it seemed the seas wanted Atlantis back and the three of us needed to be off this Island before that happened that happened._

_I voiced this to Kaiba and to Izzy who both nodded their agreement as we high-tailed it back to the portal. I was the first one through it and found myself back in Dartz's temple – Kaiba was right behind me and I'm sure that Izzy was close behind him. The walls were already starting to crumble around us – we desperately needed to be off this island. I shouted this across to Kaiba who barked back at me that he didn't need to be told that as we bombed towards the exit, and where the others were hopefully still waiting for us in the helicopter, which thankfully they were. He shouted orders for his men to start the engines to take us away from this place_

_Cassie and Mokuba shouted at us to get a move on, but then Mike appeared in the frame of the helicopter – he froze and turned pale noticing something that neither Kaiba nor myself had registered._

"Where is she? WHERE IS MY SISTER?" _I jerked to a halt on the ramp turning to see that he was right. I cursed loudly – I could have sworn that Izzy had been right behind us, but thinking of it – I didn't see her on this side of the portal – she must still be back on Atlantis. I saw no reason why she would have stayed behind. _

_Mike tried to head back in to the temple to fetch his sister out, but Raphael, who was back on his own feet, pulled him back – reasoning that his sister had survived far worse things than this and that he knew that Izzy wouldn't want Mike to get hurt on her behalf, and she was right. He added that he also had a feeling that the Pharaoh would see to it that she would be safe from further harm._

_We could only watch helplessly as the helicopter flew further and further away from the sinking city. I could see no possible way that Izzy would have been able to escape, but somehow I hoped that she had found a way off Atlantis safely._

_Kaiba narrowed his eyes and snapped that he didn't and couldn't believe that something like as simple as this would rid the world of the only person that he ever considered worthy enough to be his rival. He added that he would prove it to us as well by ordering his men to circle the area to find her and when Mokuba pointed out beams of light in the distance - originating from a small spit of land not that far where Atlantis had been._

_I peered through the helicopter window to see that the four lights were the three legendary knights of Atlantis and the Dark Magician Girl. Kaiba pulled out Critius and watched it dissolve in his hand – I smiled in spite of myself, knowing that the same process was probably happening to Hermos as well, but I didn't mind at all -_ _I think they were going home._

_Thankfully, it didn't take us that long to find Izzy. She was sitting on the beach where the lights had originated from, and she was staring out at the ocean. We watched as she looked up at the helicopter as it began its descent towards her and stood up to wait for us. She smiled and waved at us._

_Mike was the first one out of the helicopter, running straight towards his sister, shouting at her:_ "Don't you ever do anything like that again!" _She pulled a face at him, but pulled him into a fierce hug – letting him go as the rest of the rest of us followed._

_I opened my mouth to ask her – why the heck she had stay behind on Atlantis. Izzy said that before she had gone through the portal, Yami had sensed the presence of Dartz again and so they had stayed behind to confront the Atlantian ruler one final time, but then she smiled and added that Dartz was now free from the control of the Orichalcos, and back where he belonged with his father Ironheart and his daughter, Chris. She smiled at us all – this whole thing was over._

"Oh, and before I forget," _Alyssa declared suddenly,_ "With all the crazy stuff that's been going on lately, I forgot to give you this – at least this year, unlike other people, I haven't forgotten your birthday!" _She shot a look at Kaiba and me as she rummaged around in her bag for something and throwing the squishy parcel across to Izzy, _"Happy 16th birthday!"

_Kaiba produced his own white envelope from his silver briefcase snorting_: "I'm not about to be outdone by you," _as he tossed it across to the apparent birthday girl._

_I watched as Izzy put her hand in front of her mouth to stop herself from laughing – her head tilted slightly to one side so I guess that she was talking to the Pharaoh again. I will say that he was an idiot to do what he did, but if Izzy could forgive him for that, then I guess so could I. It was great to have things back to the way that they are supposed to be._

_I have to admit, it was quite a funny thing that the whole saving the world coincided with her birthday again – the Battle City Finals last year and the whole Atlantis thing this year, but I shrugged it off – it probably wasn't that important anyway_.

_We had survived this and that's all that mattered right now._

* * *

He stared at the can of Pepsi in his hand for a moment – feeling the ice cool surface against his warm hand, watching the trickles of condensation that ran down the sides of the can that he had just brought and on to his hand. With his other hand, he pulled the seal – listening to the bubbles fizzle inside the aluminium can, before bringing it up to his lips and taking a long drink from it - just savouring the cool liquid gushing down his throat.

Simon gulped some of his mouth-full, before he pulled the can away from his mouth and sank back down into his seat, letting out a loud sigh of relief – it felt so good. It was great to just relax and calm down after all the events of the past week or so – it had been crazy, chasing half way across America to rescue one of their friends and then on to save mankind from the same fate.

It had been adventure to say the least, and a bitter lesson to them all – that none of them, even the Pharaoh himself, was really infallible. Mistakes had been made and they'd all had to learn from the consequences but still there wasn't a lot of people could claim that they had been to the legendary city of Atlantis.

He scanned the departure lounge for his friends – scattered across the room. Alyssa was sitting across from him with her head in a book – she glanced up, having caught Simon staring at her. She grinned and stuck her tongue out him, before returning to her book – the Millennium Ring glinting from the rope around her neck. Simon chuckled softly as he took another swig from his can. Cassie had followed him to the café to buy a slice of pizza – she waved at him, carefully balancing her food as she made her way back over to where they were waiting for their flight.

Valon had met them outside the airport and was going to be flying back with them back to England to visit his aunt and uncle properly and to apologise for his behaviour. He'd also promised his cousin that he would not breathe a word of the Millennium Items or the Pharaoh to them. It was, as he'd put it, to be their secret – for it something that could only to be told when Izzy was ready to tell it.

He was now to be engaged in a friendly arm wrestle with Mike, just a few seats away from where Simon was sitting – it was one in which the younger boy seemed to be winning. It was a marked improvement from a few days previously in which Mike had been muttering that he was going to give Valon a blood nose and a black eye the next time that he saw him. It looked as though Mike and Izzy had both forgiven him.

Raphael was going to be joining them on the flight back to find his own cousin, Ophelia, and start a fresh as a proper family again. He'd used his phone earlier to call her and she was going to be waiting for him at the airport. Izzy had already wished him good luck, and had also passed Yami's best wishes to the man who had less than a week ago been so determined to destroy them both.

Speaking of Izzy – she was currently lying across several chairs fast asleep. She'd been asleep practically since they had arrived at the airport several hours ago. Izzy also her birthday present from Alyssa curled up in her arms – it was a cute little blue and white fluffy dragon.

Whereas everyone else in the helicopter had burst into fits of laughter when they had seen what it was, Seto Kaiba had just taken one look at that Blue Eyes White Dragon plushie and then spent the rest of the journey glowering evilly at both Alyssa and the offending item. If his glares could kill, the girl would have been a pile of ash several times over by now. He'd even tried to persuade Izzy to hand it over to him so he could get rid off it, or at the very least burn it as soon as she got back to England when he'd hauled her away from the others in order to discuss an issue that he believed to be of importance, before he and Mokuba left to begin reassembling their company from Dartz's takeover.

As it happened, Seto wasn't the only one who disliked Alyssa's choice of gift. Yami wasn't impressed with the fluffy dragon either, but there was nothing that either of them could really do about – Izzy had grown somewhat attached to it by the time they had reached the airport and refused point-blank to hand it over or even get rid of it.

Alyssa had just grinned smugly – knowing that she had won. Simon did have to admit the little dragon was rather cute, but he did have to wonder whether or not if it had been entirely her idea or if there was a second force at work that was merely out to infuriate Seto Kaiba or the Pharaoh.

The overhead speakers crackling into life quickly distracted his thoughts: "Attention passengers – we are experiencing some delays with the flights. We will do our utmost to resume our normal service as soon as possible. Thank you."

Simon scowled as the loud announcement echoed across the room – that was just perfect. The flights were all delayed. He glanced across at Izzy - checking that it hadn't disturbed her. In fact, she merely rolled over and continued snoring lightly. He rolled his eyes slightly, draining the rest of his can of Pepsi – sometimes that girl could sleep through anything. Maybe it had something to do with having an Ancient Spirit around her neck, he really didn't know.

He pulled himself to his feet, stretching his arms, before throwing the empty can into the rubbish bin. He frowned slightly, narrowing his eyes at the information desk.

"I'm going to find out what the problem with the flights is?" Simon muttered wearily to Alyssa who merely nodded at him - much more interesting in her book than finding out the reasons for the flight delays.

Simon pulled a face at her, but left his friend to her book as he approached the information desk. Apparently he wasn't the only one who had had the notion of checking what was the problem. There was a tall lad with messy blond hair who was leaning over the side of the counter, asking the woman behind it what the problem with all the flights was. Simon slowed his pace, listening carefully as the attendant answered his question to the other lad.

"We wish to ensure our customers safety," she explained patiently, "With all the strange weather that we have been experiencing recently, our engineers are just performing safety checks on the aircrafts as we speak. I believe they are almost done. Shall I check for you how long it will be until your flight will be ready?" The other boy nodded as the woman pulled her computer keyboard out, tapping away furiously and continued, "Which flight were you on, sir?"

The lad pulled his hands out of his green jacket, producing his boarding ticket for her to see, "It's to Japan."

"Fight D684 should be ready to board within 30 minutes," the woman smiled warmly at him, handing it back over to him.

"Thanks," he muttered, storing it back in his pocket while the lady glanced up again, spotting Simon hovering at the edge of the counter, turning her attention away from the other customer, she asked him, "Can I help you sir?"

Simon hesitated – he'd just found out the answer to his original question and didn't want the poor woman to have to repeat exactly what she had just said again. He opened his mouth, then closed it, before opening it again to phrase his new question:

"I'm sorry, it doesn't matter now - I just wondering how long it will be until the England flight will be ready to board? I don't really mind, sorry."

The other boy jerked his head up, looking across the desk at him, "Did you just say England?"

Simon nodded cautiously – quite unsure how to respond without causing more problems to be dealt with at a later point, but he needn't have worried. The tall lad merely widened his eyes in apparent delight – for a moment, Simon could have sworn that his eyes were almost sparkling and to be honest it was a light bit scary.

He instinctively took a step back – it didn't help him much as the other boy practically jumped on him, shaking Simon's hand, so much that for a moment, he feared it would be pulled clean from his hand.

"Hey, I knew I recognised you! You're Simon Oliver – one of the world's top duellists and one of the Battle City Finalists. I'm Jonouchi Katsuya…"He grinned, finally letting go of Simon's hand, "It's a honour to finally meet you! We went to your hometown only a few months ago. I've been wanted to meet you since Battle City, but I always seem to keep missing you."

Simon couldn't help but smile at the boy's enthusiasm, "… Umm… thanks Jonouchi…"

He waved his hand, "Just call me Jou." He added cheerily, "So then, Simon, what brings you over here? Why are you over here?"

Simon hesitated – unsure of exactly how he should really phrase it but eventually he settled on: " We're visiting friends well, it was true enough, without having to lie about what they'd actually been up to: "How about you?"

"Oh, I came with my friends and sister – you see my best friend's grandpa was over here to study relics and we tagged along for the trip – he and his partner, they discovered Atlantis, you know."

Simon cocked his eyebrows, "Oh, you mean Professor Hawkins and Doctor Moto?"

Jonouchi did a double take, "You've heard of them?

Simon smiled wryly, "Oh yes… you know those visiting – it was Professor Hawkins whom we were visiting…"

"Really? That's quite a coincidence," he grinned, rubbing his head sheepishly. "Have you heard that they're saying that Atlantis rose again." He tilted his head at the other blond boy, "Did you believe it?"

Simon shrugged non-committal, trying his best not to grin, "… Stranger things have happened."

The boy nodded, "That's true, I guess – it seems pretty impossible, but just think about everything that's happened recently – lights in the sky everywhere and all those weird storms everywhere…" Jou shuddered at the thought, "And then duel monsters in the sky and all those freaky creatures stalking the streets – Anzu was right to make us all stay at the hotel." He grinned again, " See that's them - over there..."

Simon flickered his eyes across the departure lounge to where the boy indicated to - thankfully, Jonouchi didn't notice the English lad's double take of the tri-coloured haired member of his own party, continuing regardless, "So, whom are you travelling with then?" He scanned the rest of the room, his eyes landing on

"You're travelling with the King of Games herself – WOW!" He practically yelled, causing Simon to jump back, "You've gotta introduce us to her."

"Please… she's had a difficult week," Simon shot his arm out, catching the other boy by the wrist, imploring the other to not to disturb her, "And besides… she'll probably bite my head off if I disturb her."

The taller lad stared at him with interest, before lancing over his shoulder then back again at where Izzy was still sleeping.

"You really do care about her?"

Simon nodded, "She's like the sister I never had – I've know her for as long as I can remember. I just don't want to get hurt…"

Jonouchi chuckled knowingly, "Ah…you're worried that someone will hurt her and break her heart?"

Simon balked, but his reaction told the chap that he had guessed correctly.

He watched as the Jonouchi drummed his fingers thoughtfully, "I feel the same way about my sister Shizuka – her sight has been bad for years, but she pulled through it – she's can't go anywhere without her glasses." He rubbed his arm sheepishly, "When she started dating my friend Honda, I wasn't thrilled about it but I had to accept that she has her own life; and I can't interfere with any of the choices that she makes. She's happy and that all that matters."

Simon exhaled and smiled – he knew that the stranger was right. "Thanks…"

"It's no problem," before he cocked his eyebrows again, "I am right in assuming that is that a Blue Eyes that she is holding, aren't I…?"

"It's a birthday present," Simon laughed, waving his hand slightly, " And before you ask – it wasn't from Seto Kaiba. He actually told her to burn it…"

Jou snorted, "I can't ever imagine…" However, he was cut off by a short scream and the sound of someone rolling from their seat - the sound echoing across the departure lounge causing many people, including Jonouchi's own friends, to see the source of the commotion was.

Jou and Simon jerked their heads to see that it was Izzy – it seemed that she had seen something in her dreams that had badly frightened her – enough to make her scream. As Mike helped her back into her seat and despite both her and Valon's reassurances that she was fine, even Simon could see that she still looked pale as a ghost. It must have been one hell of a bad dream to make her scream like that.

Cassie was standing close by holding on the Blue Eyes White Plushie that had rolled on to the floor when Izzy had done so.

Alyssa glanced up and beckoned her friend to come over. Simon raised his hand, signalling that he had got her message, before turning regretfully towards the other lad,

"Look, I'm sorry…"

He dismissed it, cheerily, offering his hand to the duellist, "Don't worry about it – just make sure that she's okay, alright?

"Thanks," He grinned at Jonouchi, shaking his hand one last time, "And if you're ever in the neighbourhood back in England, Jou, be sure to come find us and say hello."

"I'll hold you to it!"

* * *

**A/N: *falls over* I finally finished this chapter at last! Whoo! **

**Did anyone spot the cameos from Ouran High School Host Club?  
**

**As usual I'll send you an virtual cookie if you can guess:**

**1)Which character/s will be up next?  
**

**2)Any of the pairings (the usual culprit is barred from answering this but to make up for it this time - I will send that virtual cookie to you anyway...)  
**

**Review and join us again next time for the next chapter 'Honour', til have fun!**


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